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THE    HANDBOOK    SERIES 


STUDY  OF 
LATIN  AND  GREEK 


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THE    HANDBOOK    SERIES 


SELECTED  ARTICLES 

ON  THE 

STUDY  OF  LATIN  AND  GREEK 


COMPILED  BY 

LAMAR  T.  BEMAN,  A.M.,  LL.B. 

Attorney  at  Law,  Cleveland,  Ohio 


NEW  YORK 

THE  H.  W.  WILSON  COMPANY 

LONDON:  Grafton  qc  Co. 

1921 


^^ioil 


PUBLISHED,  SEPTEMBER  1921 
Printed  in  Ihe  Untied  States  of  America 


EXPLANATORY  NOTE 

The  Classical  Association  of  the  Atlantic  States  published  in 
1915  a  forty  page  pamphlet  entitled  "The  Practical  Value  of 
Latin"  in  which  were  given  the  opinions  of  many  prominent 
people  advocating  the  study  of  Latin  and  Greek,  with  an  intro- 
duction that  endeavored  to  answer  most  of  the  more  common 
objections  to  the  study  of  the  dead  languages.  Three  copies  of 
this  pamphlet  were  sent  to  each  member  of  the  association  to- 
gether with  a  leaflet  that  asked  for  their  co-operation  "to  get  the 
pamphlet  into  the  hands  of  those  who  need  it  most,  the  pupils 
and  the  parents  who  have  to  face  the  problem  whether  Latin 
shall  be  elected."  Lower  prices  were  charged  for  the  pamphlet 
where  a  larger  number  of  copies  were  taken  for  distribution. 
The  leaflet  further  stated,  "It  is  hoped  that  many  members  will 
purchase  copies  to  be  distributed  as  widely  as  possible.  Mem- 
bers who  are  not  in  a  position  to  distribute  copies  themselves 
may  wish  to  contribute  to  a  fund  for  the  distribution  of  copies; 
such  contributions  will  be  most  welcome."  The  pamphlet,  on 
the  inside  of  the  first  cover,  states  frankly  that  it  is  "published 
in  the  hope  that  children  and  parents  both  may  be  guided  to  a 
wise  choice  of  studies  in  school  and  college  by  the  aid  of  these 
convictions  of  persons  of  distinction." 

No  criticism  is  offered  here  of  this  organized  propaganda, 
and  this  is  only  one  small  phase  of  the  propaganda*  carried  on 
by  the  teachers  of  the  dead  languages,  but  the  opinion  is  ex- 
pressed that  it  is  seldom  possible  to  reach  a  wise  conclusion  on 
any  question  that  is  a  matter  of  public  controversy  by  reading 
only  one  side  of  that  case,  and  that  this  is  particularly  true  when 
the  ex  part-e  statement  is  so  largely  a  matter  of  opinions  that 
have  been  compiled  by  interested  parties.  Children  and  parents 
may  be,  not  "not  guided  to  a  choice,"  but  rather  given  an  oppor- 
tunity to  get  for  themselves  the  facts  that  will  enable  them  to 
decide  upon  an  even  wiser  choice  of  studies  if  they  have  at  their 
disposal  a  little  volume  that  presents  fully  and  fairly  "the  con- 
victions of  persons  of  distinction"  on  both  sides  of  this  old  and 


460033 


vi  EXPLANATORY  NOTE 

long  discussed  question,  a  volume  that  endeavors  to  eliminate  all 
bitterness  and  slurs,  a  volume  in  the  preparation  of  which  is 
no  element  of  self  interest  or  effort  to  lead  the  reader  to 
the  conclusion  that  the  editor  desires  to  create  in  his  mind,  a 
volume  that  endeavors  to  give  so  far  as  possible  all  the  facts  and 
the  best  of  the  "convictions"  (that  is,  opinions)  on  both  sides. 
Such  is  the  general  plan  of  the  Handbook  Series,  in  accordance 
with  which  this  volume  is  compiled.  Following  the  general  plan 
of  this  series,  the  present  volume  endeavors  to  bring  together 
the  best  that  has  been  written  on  both  sides  of  the  old  controversy 
over  the  value  of  the  study  of  the  Latin  and  Greek  languages, 
to  give  bibliographical  references  to  a  wider  field  of  the  best 
literature  of  the  question,  and  to  include  debaters'  briefs  in 
which  the  whole  argument  on  each  side  is  presented  in  skeleton 
form. 

Lamar  T.  Beman 
February  J,  J921. 


CONTENTS 

Briefs 

Affirmative  Brief   ix 

Negative  Brief   xv 

Bibliography 

Bibliographies  and  Briefs  xxix 

General  References   xxix 

Affirmative   References    xxxiii 

Negative  References xliv 

Introduction 

General  Discussion 

Classical  Studies  (Sonnenschein)   9 

Mediaeval  Universities   (Walsh)    13 

Requirements  for  the  Bachelor's  Degree  (John) 17 

Brief    Excerpts    23 

Affirmative  Discussion 

Case  for  the  Classics  ( Shorey ) 25 

Worth  of  Ancient  Literature  (Bryce) 52 

Value  of  the  Classics  to  Students  of  English  (Denney)  70 

Must  the  Classics  Go  ?   (West)    76 

Measurements  of  the  Effect  of  Latin  (Perkins) 88 

Classics  in  British  Education 92 

Value  of  Latin  and  Greek  (Cole)   107 

Brief  Excerpts 1 14 

Negative  Discussion 

Value  of  the  Classics  (Bain)    125 

Liberal  Education  Without  Latin  (Snedden) 149 

Value  of  Studying   Foreign  Languages    (Starch) 168 

Education  as  Mental  Discipline   (Flexner)    175 

Teaching  of  English  (Chamberlain)   193 

Classical  Literature  Through  Translations    (Sisson) 202 

Why  I  Have  a  Bad  Education  (Hall) 205 

Examples  of  Dead  Language  Propaganda 213 

Brief  Excerpts  216 


One  group  of  educators  sturdily  defends  the  traditional  class- 
ical course,,  .with  its.  great  emphasison  Greek  and  Latin,  while 
another  .group,  as  urgently  insists  that  .if.  any  foreign  languages 
are  taught,  they  must  be  the  modern  ones.  These  opposing 
schools  of  thought  are  profoundly  sincere  in  their  conflicting  be- 
liefs. Each  side  is  absolutely  certain  that  it  is  right  and  is  un- 
alterably of  the  opinion  that  there  is  no  other  side  of  the 
qiiestion  to  be  even  so  much  as  considered.  Anything  that  agrees 
with  its  own  side  is  based  on  reason;  anything  opposed  is  but 
ignorant  prejudice.  Under  the  circumstances  the  disinterested 
outsider  may  well  suspect  that  where  there  is  so  much  sincerity 
and  conviction,  there  must  be  much  truth  on  both  sides.  And 
undoubtedly  this  is  the  case. ^-Franklin  Bobbitt,  *'What  the 
Schools  Teach  and  Might  Teach"  p.  96.  Cleveland  Education 
Survey,  191$. 


The  presumption  in  favor  of  any  belief  generally  entertained 
has  existed  in  favor  of  many  beliefs  now  known  to  be  entirely 
erroneous,  and  is  especially  weak  in  the  case  of  a  theory  which 
enlists  the  support  of  powerful  special  interests.  The  history 
of  mankind  everywhere  shows  the  power  that  special  interests, 
capable  of  organization  and  action,  may  exert  in  securing  the 
acceptance  of  the  most  monstrous  doctrines.  We  have,  indeed, 
only  to  look  around  us  to  see  how  easily  a  small  special  interest 
may  exert  greater  influence  in  forming  opinion  and  in  making 
laws  than  a  large  general  interest. — Henry  George,  Protection  or 
Free  Trade,    p.  12. 


BRIEFS 

Resolved,  That  a  wise  choice  of  studies  in  high  school  or 
college  would  include  Latin  (and  Greek,) 

Affirmative  Brief 

Introduction. 

A.  Historical  statement. 

1.  The  modern  study  of  the  ancient  classical  lan- 
guages dates  from  the  fall  of  Constantinople  in 
1453. 

2.  It  was  introduced  into  England  in  the  following 
century. 

3.  It  was  brought  to  this  country  from  England  with 
our  other  institutions  and  customs. 

4.  From  the  founding  of  Harvard  College  until  quite 
recently  the  study  of  the  ancient  classical  lan- 
guages was  recognized  as  the  pillar  of  the  curricu- 
lum in  every  institution  of  higher  education. 

5.  The  ancient  classical  languages  have  gained 
ground  during  the  past  few  jears. 

B.  The  purpose  of  higher  education  is  to  disseminate  true 

culture. 

1.  Culture  is  knowing  the  best  that  has  been  thought 
and  said  in  the  whole  history  of  mankind. 

2.  A  cultured  person  is  one  who  finds  in  his  mind  and 
tastes  a  permanent  source  of  satisfaction  and  en- 
joyment. 

3.  Culture  is  obtained  from  a  liberal  education,  une 
that  develops  all  the  faculties  and  qualities  of  the 
mind. 

C.  The  affirmative  will  prove  that  the  study  of  the  an- 

cient classical  languages: 

1.  Gives  a  superior  mental  training, 

2.  Is  the  foundation  of  all  true  culture. 


:  BRIEF 

3.  Is  exceedingly  valuable  for  the  knowledge  it  gives. 

4.  Is  the  best  foundation  and  preparation  for  other 
studies. 

5.  Is  approved  and  endorsed  by  most  of  the  great 
educators  and  the  men  and  women  who  have  been 
leaders  of  thought  and  action. 

I.    The  study  of  the  ancient  classical  languages  gives  a  su- 
perior mental  training. 

A.  The  classics  have  stood  the  test  of  time  as  a  formative 

study. 

1.  They  have  been  so  recognized  for  more  than  three 
hundred  years  in  all  civilized  countries. 

2.  They  are  today  the  pillars  of  almost  every  high 
school  course  in  America. 

(a)  More   than  half   a   million   students   in   our 
public  high  schools  are  now  taking  Latin. 

(b)  This  number  is  constantly  increasing. 

(c)  The   pupils    who    take   Latin   are   the   more 
substantial  and  serious  minded  students. 

B.  The   classic   languages   supplement   science,   mathema- 

tics, and  history  to  make  a  well  rounded  course. 

C.  The  study  of  the  ancient  classical  languages  develops 

all  the  powers  and  faculties  of  the  human  mind. 

1.  It  gives  the  best  known  memory  training. 

2.  It  develops  accuracy  and  precision  in  the  use  of 
language. 

3.  It  trains  and  perfects  the  judgment. 

4.  It  enlarges  the  vision. 

5.  It  develops  the  reasoning  powers. 

6.  It  quickens  the  powers  of  observation  and  per- 
ception. 

7.  It  gives  concentration  of  mind. 

8.  It  develops  breadth  of  sympathy. 

9.  It  enlarges  the  understanding. 

10.    It  develops  habits  of  thoroughness  and  industry. 

D.  The   unquestionable   results   of   classical   training   are 

absolute  proof  of  its  superior  value  as  a  form  of 
mental  training. 


BRIEF  xi 

1.  Students  with  a  classical  education  invariably  do 
the  best  work  in  the  professional  and  scientific 
schools.     (West,  Value  of  the  Classics,    p.  364-86) 

2.  Most  of  the  great  men  of  the  world  within  the  last 
three  hundred  years  have  had  a  classical  education. 

3.  Students  who  enter  college  without  any  classical 
preparation  are  not  nearly  as  well  equipped  for  col- 
lege work  and  do  not  accomplish  as  much  in  col- 
lege as  those  who  have  taken  Latin  and  Greek  in 
the  preparatory  schools.  (University  of  Colorado 
Bulletin.  Sept.  1914,  and  North  American  Review 
138:161.  Feb.  1884.) 

II.    The  study  of  the  ancient  classical  languages  is  the  founda- 
tion of  all  true  culture. 

A.  It  is  universally  so  recognized. 

1.  So  recognized  for  three  hundred  years. 

2.  So  recognized  in  all  civilized  countries. 

3.  So  recognized  by  most  of  the  great  educational 
leaders. 

(a)     Nicholas  Murray  Butler   (Meaning  of  Edu- 
cation, p.  173.) 

B.  It  gives  polish,  grace  and  refinement. 

I.    It  gives  one  the  power  to  understand  and  enjoy 
the  best  of  our  own  literature, 
(a)     English  Hterature,  especially  poetry,  abounds 
with    references    to    ancient   mythology   and 
literature. 

C.  It  gives  the  power  to  appreciate  the  beautiful  in  art 

and  architecture. 

1.  By  developing  the  power  of  observation  and  per- 
ception. 

2.  By  developing  the  imagination. 

D.  It  gives  poise  and  mental  equilibrium. 

I.  Men  and  nations  whose  leaders  have  a  classical 
education  do  not  yield  to  hysteria  in  times  of  crisis 
or  excitement. 

E.  It  gives  one  a  sense  of  pleasure  and  satisfaction  in  his 


xii  BRIEF 

III.     The  study  of  the  ancient  classical  languages  is  very  valu- 
able for  the  knowledge  it  gives. 

A.  It  reveals  ancient  civilization  at  first  hand,  it  is  his- 

tory by  source  material. 
I.     The  laws,  customs,  and  institutions  of  the  foun- 
dation civilizations  are  revealed. 

B.  It  gives  the  student  first  hand  information  concerning 

the  best  of  the  world*s  literature. 
I.     No  poet   has   ever   equalled   Homer,   and   no   one 
really  understands  and  appreciates  Homer  who  has 
not  read  him  in  the  original. 

C.  It  brings  the  student  into  direct  contact  with  the  na- 

tions that  produced  the  best  of  the  world's  art  and 
architecture. 

IV.     The   study  of   the  ancient  classical  languages  is  the  best 
foundation  and  preparation  for  other  studies. 

A.     It    contributes    to    success    in    the    professions    and 
sciences. 

1.  It  is  a  great  help  in  the  legal  profession. 

(a)  The  phrases  and  maxims  of  the  law  are 
largely  in  Latin. 

(b)  A  knowledge  of  Latin  makes  a  splendid  in- 
troduction to  the  study  of  the  civil  law, 
which  has  come  down  to  us  from  ancient 
Rome. 

2.  It  is  very  valuable  for  the  medical  profession, 
(a)     Latin  or  Greek  words  make  up  the  termin- 
ology   of    anatomy,    pharmacy,    botany    and 
some  other  sciences. 

3.  It  is  necessary  as  a  preparation  for  the  priesthood 
or  the  ministry. 

(a)  The  exact  meaning  of  many  passages  of  the 
scriptures  can  be  ascertained  only  by  one 
who  has  learned  Latin  and  Greek. 

4.  It  is  very  helpful  to  most  of  the  sciences. 

(a)  Latin  or  Greek  words  make  up  the  terminol- 
ology  of  most  of  the  sciences,. 


BRIEF  xiii 

5.  Most  of  the  men  who  have  achieved  eminence  in 
the  professions  and  sciences  in  recent  centuries 
have  had  a  classical  education. 

B.  A  knowledge  of  the  ancient  classical  languages  greatly 

facilitates  the  acquisition  of  the  Romance  languages. 

1.  In  any  class  in  the  Romance  languages  in  any  col- 
lege, the  best  work  is  done  by  those  students  who 
have  mastered  the  classics. 

2.  French,  Spanish,  and  Italian  are  very  largely  de- 
rived from  the  Latin.  (Sabin,  The  Relation  of 
Latin  to  Practical  Life,  p  35) 

3.  Students  and  teachers  of  Romance  languages  are 
unanimous  in  their  statements  of  the  benefits  of 
a  classical  preparation  for  the  Romance  languages. 

C.  A  knowledge  of  the  ancient  classical  languages  is  es- 

sential to  a  thorough  .mastery  of  English. 

1.  This  is  the  testimony  of  professors  and  teachers  of 
English. 

2.  About  half  of  the  words  in  the  English  language 
are  derived  from  Latin  or  Greek. 

3.  Careful  translation  gives  a  peculiar  command  of 
English. 

(a)  It  enriches  the  vocabulary. 

(b)  It  teaches  the  exact  meaning  of  words. 

(c)  It  enables  the  student  to  grasp  the  meaning 
of  many  words  without  reference  to  the  dic- 
tionary. 

(d)  It  greatly  facilitates  the  use  of  the  prefixes 
and  suffixes. 

4.  Latin  or  Greek  Grammar  gives  new  meaning  to 
English  Grammar. 

(a)  It  gives  accurate  knowledge  and  understand- 
ing of  the  English  sentence. 

The  study  of  the  ancient  classical  languages  has  been  ap- 
proved and  endorsed  as  the  best  possible  education  by 
most  of  the  great  educators  and  by  many  of  the  great 
leaders  in  all  fields  of  thought  and  action.    West,  Value 
of  the  Classics). 


BRIEF 

A.  Educators. 

1.  President  Lowell  of  Harvard. 

2.  President  Hadley  of  Yale. 

3.  President  Hibben  of  Princeton. 

4.  William  T.  Harris,  former  U.  S.  Commissioner  of 
Education. 

V  5.     President  Butler  of  Columbia. 
6.     Chancellor  Day  of  Syracuse. 

B.  Statesmen. 

I.  James  Bryce. 

^  2.  Theodore  Roosevelt. 

^   3.  Woodrow  Wilson. 

■    4.  William  E.  Gladstone. 

C.  Lawyers  and  Jurists. 

1.  William  H.  Taft. 

2.  Elihu  Root. 

3.  Roscoe  Pound.* 

4.  A.  Mitchell  Palmer. 

D.  Clergymen. 

1.  Hugh  Black. 

2.  Benjamin  D.  Warfield.  . 

3.  John  DeWitt. 

4.  William  D.  McKenzie. 

E.  Writers  and  Authors. 

V    I.  James  Russell  Lowell. 

V'   2.  John  Stuart  Mill. 

3.  Lyman  Abbott. 

4.  Henry  Van  Dyke. 

F.  Physicians. 

I.  Victor  C.  Vaughan. 

>      2.  Mayo  Brothers. 

3.  William  S.  Thayer. 

,       4.  Charles  S.  Dana. 

G.  Business  men. 

1.  James  Loeb. 

2.  William  Sloan. 

3.  Alba  B.  Johnson. 

4.  S.  S.  McClure. 

t.     5.    George  H.  Putnam. 


BRIEF  XV 

H.    Engineers. 

1.  Charles  P.  Steinmetz. 

2.  John  N.  Vedder. 

Negative  Brief 

Introduction. 

A.  Almost   all    conditions   of   life   have   changed    funda- 

mentally in  the  three  hundred  years  since  the  study 
of  the  dead  languages  was  introduced  in  England. 

1.  Then  there  was  relatively  little  else  to  study. 

(a)     Such    knowledge    as    did    exist    was    largely 
locked  up  in  the  dead  languages. 

2.  Then  the  study  of  the  deads  languages  was  warmly 
supported  and  encouraged  by  despotism  and  in- 
tolerance. 

3.  Now  there  are  many  useful  studies. 

(a)  The  English  language. 

(x)  A  good  command  and  an  elegant  usage 
of  English  are  now  a  necessity  to  all 
educated  people. 

(y)  The  literature  of  the  English  language 
is  now  the  best  in  the  world. 

(b)  There  is  now  a  vast  body  of  important  sci- 
entific knowledge. 

(w)  Physical  science,  physics,  chemistry, 
geology,  astronomy,  geography,  etc. 

(x)  Biological  sciences,  botany,  zoology, 
bacteriology,  physiology,  hygiene,  etc. 

(y)  Social  sciences,  economics,  political 
science,  sociology,  etc. 

(z)  Applied  science,  industrial  arts,  agricul- 
ture, commerce  and  engineering  in  its 
various  branches. 

(c)  History 

(d)  Philosophy. 

(e)  Mathematics. 

B.  The  meaning  of  the  question. 

I.  For  practical  purposes  this  question  refers  only 
to  the  study  of  Latin,  for  Greek  has  practically  dis- 


BRIEF 

appeared  from  our  high  schools  and  colleges,  so 
that  most  of  the  students  could  not  take  Greek 
even  if  they  wanted  to  do  so. 

C.    The  true  purpose  of  education.    Lapp  and  Mote,  Learn- 
ing to  Earn.    Chap.  L 

1.  To  prepare  each  individual  for  a  life  of  service. 

2.  To  develop  the  natural  capabilities  of  each  and 
every  person,  so  that  he  may  fill  a  useful  place  in 

'     society. 

p.    The  Negative  will  prove 

1.  That  the  study  of  the  dead  languages  is  very  harm- 
ful as  a  form  of  mental  training. 

2.  That  the  knowledge  acquired  from  the  study  of 
the  dead  languages  is  absolutely  useless  to  the  aver- 
age person. 

3.  That  the  study  of  the  dead  languages  is  not  neces- 
sary for  nor  materially  helpful  to  other  studies. 

4.  That  the  study  of  the  dead  languages  entails  an 
enormous  social  waste. 

5.  That  the  study  of  the  dead  languages  is  strongly 
opposed  by  the  majority  of  the  able  and  disinter- 
ested people. 

The  study  of  the  dead  languages  is  very  harmful  as  a  form 
of  mental  training. 

A.  It  gives  a  narrow  one-sided  training. 

1.  It  is  chiefly  memory  training. 

(a)     It   expends   rather   than  trains  the  memory. 
(Bain,  Education  as  a  science  p.  367) 

2.  It  encourages  acquiescence.  (Spencer,  Education; 
Intellectual,  Moral,  and  Physical,    p.  79) 

3.  It  develops  narrowness  and  snobbishness.  (Class- 
ical Journal  13: 147) 

4.  It  does  not  develop  initiative. 

B.  It  does  not  develoj^  the  intellectual  powers. 

1.  The  power  of  logical  reasoning. 

2.  The  power  of  original  thinking. 

3.  The  power  of  independent  inquiry  or  bold  investi- 
gation. 


BRIEF  xvii 

4.  The  observing  and  reflective  powers.  (Adams,  A 
College  Fetich) 

C.  It  turns  attention  away  from  the  reaUties  of  the  world. 

1.  Language  is  merely  a  tool  of  value  as  we  rnake  use 
of  it. 

2.  The  intensive  study  of  the  dead  languages  uses 
the  best  years  of  the  student's  life  on  grammar, 
syntax,  inflections,  vocabulary,  and  translation  of  a 
few  fragments  of  ancient  literature. 

3.  It  is  chiefly  the  few  language-minded  students  who 
take  more  than  a  mere  smattering  of  the  dead 
languages,  and  these  are  the  ones  above  all  others 
who  do  not  need  this  form  of  training. 

4.  Language  study  does  not  develop  the  habits  and 
the  qualities  of  mind  necessary  for  men  of  thought 
and  action  in  the  affairs  of  life  in  the  twentieth 
century. 

D.  The   universal   use   of  illegitimate  helps   makes   abso- 

lutely impossible  the  good  results  that  are  claimed 
to  follow  from  the  slow  and  tedious  grind  of  study- 
ing the  dead  languages,  but  instead  makes  the  study 
conducive  to  dishonest  methods  in  other  things  as 
well  as  making  the  so  called  culture  very  superficial. 

1.  Handy  literal  translations. 

2.  Interlinear  translations. 

E.  Claims   often    made   and^  never   proved   that   students 

who  have  taken  the  dead  languages  do  better  work 
in  other  studies,  even  if  proved,  would  not  prove 
any  superiority  for  the  training  obtained  from  the 
study  of  the  dead  languages. 

1.  As  a  general  rule  it  is  the  abler  students  who  take 
and  continue  work  in  the  dead  languages. 

(a)  Other    students    are    not    wanted.      Classical 
Journal  13 :  147  Dec.  1917. 

(b)  Many  weaker   students   change  their  course 
or  leave  school  discouraged. 

2.  In  the  professional  and  scientific  schools  compar- 
isons are  usually  meaningless. 


xviii  BRIEF 

(a)  Students  who  have  taken  the  dead  languages 
in  high  school  and  college  are  compared  with 
those  who  have  never  been  to  college. 

F.  The  men  of  this  generation  who  have  taken  Latin  and 
Greek  through  high  school  and  college  have  accom- 
plished less  in  life  than  men  with  a  practical  mod- 
ern education. 

II.    The  knowledge  acquired  from  a  study  of  the  dead  lan- 
guages is  absolutely  useless  to  the  average  person. 

A.  Direct  use  of  this  knowledge  is  seldom  if  ever  made. 

1.  The  knowledge  acquired  consists  of : 

(a)  Details  of  inflection,  grammar,  vocabulary, 
etc.  of  a  dead  language. 

(b)  More  or  less  ability  to  translate  slowly  and 
tediously. 

(c)  A  smattering  of  the  facts  of  ancient  history. 

(d)  Some  acquaintance  with  primitive  pagan 
civilization,  with  its  highly  immoral  mythol- 
ogy and  childish  superstition,  its  human 
slavery  of  white  men,  its  gladiatorial  fights, 
its  very  corrupt  government  and  society,  its 
brutal  dungeons,  its  horrible  warfare  with 
spear  and  sword,  its  frequent  murders,  its 
wholesale  robbery  of  its  colonies,  its  utter 
intolerance  and  contempt  of  the  rights  of 
other  nations. 

2.  Not  one  student  in  a  hundred  makes  any  use  at 
all  of  any  of  these  facts. 

3.  All  students  soon  forget  practically  all  of  this  in- 
formation. 

4.  It  is  outrageously  absured  for  high  school  and  col- 
lege students  to  go  through  the  dull  and  dismal 
grind  of  learning  all  this  useless  nonesense. 

B.  Most  of  the  high  school  students  taking  the  dead  lan- 

guages do  not  pursue  them  long  enough  to  get  their 
supposed  benefits. 
I.    The  head  of  the  Latin  department  at  Adelbert  Col- 
lege said  in  1915  "It  is  of  course  foolish  for  any- 
one to  take  Latin  without  Greek,"  but  over  half 


BRIEF  xix 

a  million  students  in  American  high  schools  are 
doing  so. 
2.  About  one  third  of  the  students  in  high  schools 
take  Latin,  but  most  of  them  do  not  take  more 
than  two  years  of  it.  (Lankester,  Natural  Science 
and  the  Classical  System  in  Education,    p.  201) 

(a)  Many  never  complete  one  year  of  it. 

(b)  Many  take  only  two  years  to  make  the  re- 
quirement of  the  colleges. 

(c)  Some    high    schools    are    only    three    year 
schools. 

C.    All  beautiful  or  useful  thought  in  the  dead  languages 
has  been  well  translated. 

1.  To  know  the  facts  of  ancient  history  it  is  not 
necessary  to  learn  the  dead  languages. 

2.  Persons  who  study  Plato,  Aristotle,  or  Cicero  for 
the  knowledge  to  be  obtained  from  their  works, 
invariably  do  so  by  reading  a  translation. 

3.  It  had  never  been  considered  necessary  to  know 
Latin  or  Greek  to  read  understandingly  the  Holy 
Scriptures.. 

III.    The  study  of  the  dead  languages  is  not  necessary  for  nor 
materially  helpful  to  other  studies. 
A.    It  is  neither  necessary  nor  helpful  to  the  learned  por- 
fessions. 

1.  Many  of  our  ablest  lav^ers,  jurists,  physicians, 
surgeons,  clergymen,  engineers,  authors,  editors, 
business  men,  etc.  never  studied  any  dead  language. 

(a)  Abraham  Lincoln. 

(b)  William  Shakespeare. 

(c)  W.  D.  Howells. 

(d)  T.  B.  Aldrich. 

2.  The  fact  that  the  terminology  of  some  of  the  sci- 
ences and  some  of  the  words  and  phrases  used  in 
the  law  are  Latin  or  Greek  words  does  not  prove 
that  it  is  necessary  or  even  helpful  for  one  to  go 
through  the  long,  dull,  dismal,  and  stupifying 
grind  of  learning  the  dead  languages  in  order  to 
make  a  success  of  one  of  these  sciences  or  profes- 
sions. 


BRIEF 

(a)  Such  Latin  phrases  as  "habeas  corpus'*  "ex 
post  Facto"  "in  quo  warranto"  are  no  more 
difficult  to  understand  that  such  terms  as 
"right  of  eminent  domain."  "Garnishee"  or 
"legal  tender." 

(b)  Practically  all  knowledge  of  the  dead  lan- 
guages is  so  soon  forgotten  as  to  make  any 
professional  man  who  has  studied  the  dead 
languages  just  as  much  dependent  upon  his 
dictionary  as  his  associate  who  never  wasted 
any  time  on  them. 

(c)  To  most  scientific  and  technical  terms  a 
knowledge  of  the  Latin  or  Greek  root  would 
give  little  meaning  and  would  often  cause 
confusion.  (Bain,  Education  as  a  Science, 
p.  375-6) 

3.  Useful  and  practical  studies  would  be  a  far  better 
preparation  for  the  professions  and  sciences. 

B.     The  study  of  the  dead  languages  is  not  necessary  nor 
helpful   to  an  elegant  and  forceful  use  of  English. 
(Bain,  Education  as  a   Science,  p.   374-8) 
I.     Many  persons  who  have  used  English  most  ele- 
gantly,    forcefully     and     most     accurately     n^ver 
studied  a  dead  language. 

(a)  Abraham  Lincoln. 

(b)  William  Shakespeare. 

(c)  Henry  George. 

(d)  W.  D.  Howells. 

2.  The  claim  that  without  studying  the  dead  lan- 
guages or  at  least  Latin  it  is  impossible  for  the 
average  person  to  gain  a  complete  mastery  of  Eng- 
lish is  ridiculously  absurd. 

(a)  This  claim  for  the  dead  languages  was  not 
made  until  quite  recently. 

(b)  While  this  statement  has  often  been  made,  it 
has  never  been  proved.  The  Negative  ^sks 
for  proof,  for  some  real  evidence. 

(c)  Opinions  do  not  make  proof,  especially  is 
this  true  of  the  biased  opinions  of  financially 
interested  parties. 


BRIEF  xxi 

(d)  Latin  and  Greek  are  too  unlike  English. 

(e)  It  would  be  just  as  reasonable  to  say  that  it 
is  necessary  to  study  astronomy  in  order  to 
prepare  for  dentistry. 

(f)  When  the  classical  group  ruled  our  schools 
and  colleges,  it  was  necessary  to  take  both 
languages  throughout  the  high  school  and 
college  course,  and  the  result  was  that  prac- 
tically no  English  was  taught  in  the  high 
schools  until  about  twenty-five  years  ago. 

(g)  The  fact  that  many  English  words  are  de- 
rived from  Greek  or  Latin  roots,  does  not 
prove  that  it  is  necessary  or  even  helpful  to 
a  complete  mastery  of  English  for  one  to 
spend  years  at  the  dull  drudgery  of  learning 
the  dead  languages. 

(v)     It  might  just  as  well  be  said  that  one 
must    learn    the    original    Anglo-Saxon 
from   which  many  English  words   are 
also  derived, 
(w)     Many  English  words  now  have  a  very 
different    meaning    than    the    Latin    or 
Greek    roots    from    which    they    were 
originally  derived, 
(x)     There  are  no  words  in  the  English  lan- 
guage  of   which   any  high   school  boy 
or  girl  cannot  easily  and  quickly  obtain 
the  exact  meaning, 
(y)     Any  person  who  has  studied  the  dead 
languages    so    soon    forgets   them    that 
they  are  of  very  little  help  in  under- 
standing or  using  English, 
(z)     Latin   vocabulary   of  most   students   is 
too  small  to  be  of  real  help. 
The  only  way  to  learn  English  so  as  to  have  a 
good  command  of  it,  is  by  studying  English, 
(a)     Nobody  uses  English  elegantly  and  well  un- 
less he  has  read  some  of  the  best  works  in 
English  literature  and  has  associated  to  some 
extent  with  educated  and  cultured  people. 


xxii  BRIEF 

(b)  Nobody  writes  elegant  and  forceful  English 
unless  he  has  had  practice  in  doing  so. 

(c)  The  student  who  has  taken  Latin  and  Greek 
gives  just  as  much  time  in  high  school  and 
college  to  the  study  of  English  as  the  student 
who  has  never  studied  a  dead  language, 
(x)     If   the   study    of   the   dead   languages 

were  any  real  help  to  English,  cer- 
tainly the  high  school  courses  would  be 
so  arranged  as  to  require  less  English 
work  of  the  classical  students  than  of 
others. 
4.     The  study  of  Latin  at  the  high  school  age  is  very 

injurious  to  English.     (Mackie,  Education  during 

Adolescence,  p.  99  et  seq.) 

C.  The  study  of  the  dead  languages  is  not  really  helpful, 

much  less  necessary,  to  a  study  of  the  modern  lan- 
guages. 

1.  Half  of  the  time  spent  on  the  dead  language  would 
be  sufficient  to  learn  a  modern  language, 

2.  Most  of  the  students  who  learn  the  dead  languages 
thoroughly  do  not  have  time  to  take  up  the  modern 
languages. 

D.  The  study  of  the  dead  languages  does  not  excite  the 

intellectual  interests  of  modern  students. 

1.  It  does  not  lead  to  interest  in  other  allied  studies,  ^ 
or  to  the  acquisition  of  other  knowledge. 

2.  The  dead  languages  are  not  interesting  or  inspir- 
ing in  themselves,  nor  do  they  excite  a  student  to 
continue  his  study. 

fa)     The   study  of  the  dead  languages  is  never 

continued  after  a  student  leaves  high  school 

or  college. 

(x)  Occasionally  we  hear  it  said  that  some 
person  enjoyed  reviewing  them  in  his 
dotage,  but  who  can  tell  of  a  particular 
case  where  this  was  true. 

(y)  For  every  case  of  a  person  who  en- 
joyed reading  Homer  in  his  dotage,  a 
thousand  boys  have  left  high  school  in 


BRIEF  xxiii 

disgust  over  the  dry  bones  of  tCe  dead 
languages. 

(z)  Both  John  Adams  and  Thomas  Jeffer- 
son, after  they  were  seventy  years  of 
age,  spent  some  time  on  the  Greek  clas- 
sics and  exchanged  letters  of  dissatis- 
faction and  disgust.  (Adams,  A  Col- 
lege Fetich) 
(b)     Teachers    or    teaching    methods    are    often 

blamed  for  making  the  dead  languages  dull 

and  uninteresting. 

(x)  This  is  most  absurd,  because  the 
teachers  of  the  dead  languages  as  a 
rule  are  superior  teachers, 

(y)  Only  superhuman  power  can  restore 
life  to  the  dead. 

(z)  Teaching  methods  were  criticised  by 
Milton,  Heine,  and  have  been  criticised 
continually  ever  since. 

IV.    The  study  of  the  dead  languages  entails  an  enormous  so- 
cial waste. 
A.    It  prevents  the  student  from  taking  important  and  use- 
ful   subjects    and    getting   knowledge    which    every 
person  ought  to  have. 

1.  It  is  possible  to  cover  only  sixteen  units  in  a  high 
school  course  of  four  years. 

2.  Every  high  school  student  taking  a  cultural  course 
ought  to  get  at  least: 

(a)  Four  units  of  English. 

(b)  Two  units  of  physical  science. 

(c)  Two  units  of  biological  science. 

(d)  Two  units  of  social  science. 

(e)  Three  units  of  history.  ^ 

(f)  Three  units  of  mathematics. 

(g)  Some   modern   language   might   be   included 
for  those  who  will  make  use  of  it. 

(h)     Some  practical  science. 

3.  About  half  of  this  must  be  omitted  by  the  student 
who  takes  the  Latin-Greek  course,  and  one  quarter 
of  it  by  the  student  who  takes  Latin  without 
Greek. 


BRIEF 

4.  If  any  foreign  languages  are  taken,  they  should  be 
the  modern  languages,  for  these  have  the  possi- 
bility of  being  of  some  use  to  the  student. 

5.  Students  taking  dead  language  in  high  school  are 
compelled  to  give  it  most  of  their  time  iand  effort 
in  their  study  hours,  neglecting  the  practical  and 
useful  studies. 

B.  The  study  of  the  dead  languages  retards  and  prevents 

the  education  of  many  pupils. 
I.  It  is  a  dull  and  dismal  grind  that  takes  a  student 
away  from  the  realities  of  the  world  and  compels 
him  to  labor  tediously  at  memorizing,  conjugating, 
cramming  rules  of  grammar,  syntax,  meanings  of 
words,  idioms,  and  slowly  translating  bits  of  an- 
cient writings. 

(a)  Many  boys  leave  high  school  in  disgust, 
robbed  of  their  education.  (G.  Stanley  Hall, 
School  Review  9:656  Dec.  1901) 

(b)  Many  pupils  do  not  make  progress  and 
change  their  course. 

(c)  None  of  the  pupils  can  consider  the  study  as 
connected  with  the  realities  of  the  world. 

C.  The  study  of  the  dead  languages  has  retarded  the  prog- 

ress of  civilization. 

1.  The  progress  of  civilization  has  been  enhanced  by 
the  great  inventions,  discoveries,  and  reforms 
made  in  the  fields  of  science,  including  the  physical 
sciences,  that  is,  chemistry,  physics,  engineering, 
transportation,  communication,  mining,  agricul- 
ture, etc.,  and  also  including  social  science,  that  is, 
government,  industrial  relations,  social  service,  etc. 

2.  The  study  of  the  dead  languages  diverts  the  atten- 
tion of  many  of  the  best  minds  away  from  these 
things  to  the  details  of  ancient  history,  grammar, 
and  philology. 

(a)  The  grind  over  the  dead  languages  unfits  a 
person  for  a  life  of  useful  service  in  the 
world. 

(b)  The  careful  student  of  the  dead  languages 
cannot  be  the  best  type  of  a  good  citizen  in 
a  twentieth  century  democracy. 


BRIEF  xxT 

(c)     He  is  either  a  bookworm,  or  he  has  lost  the 
best  of  his  student  hours  in  the  pedagogical 
treadmill  of  the  dead  languages. 
3.     By  turning  attention  away   from  the  realities  of 
the  world,  the  study  of  the  dead  languages  has 
retarded  the  progress  of  civilization  by  more  than 
a  century. 
D.    The  study  of  the  dead  languages  creates  snobbishness 
in  education. 

1.  It  was  originally  designed  in  England  to  create 
gentlemen   of  leisure,   who   considered  themselves 

/  above  ordinary  people  and  who  showed  their 
loftiness  of  mind  by  the  occasional  use  of  a  Latin 
quotation. 

2.  In  our  high  schools  today  the  "classical"  teachers 
and  "classical"  students  assume  an  attitude  of  lofty 
superiority  and  look  with  contempt  upon  all  who 
waste  none  of  their  time  on  the  dead  languages. 
(Classical  Journal  13:  147  Dec.  1917.) 

3.  The  better  forms  of  education  have  been  attacked 
and  ridiculed  for  a  hundred  years  by  persons 
whose  motive  was  to  preserve  their  own  positions 
teaching  the  dead  languages. 

(a)  Practical  and  useful  studies  have  been  de- 
nounced as  "low  utilitarianism"  and  "a  mess 
of  potage." 

(b)  An  organized  propaganda  has  been  carried 
on  for  several  years  by  teachers  of  the  dead 
languages. 

(w)  The  pamphlet  "The  Practical  Value  of 
Latin"  By  the  Classical  Association  of 
the  Atlantic  States  published  in  1915  is 
an  example. 

(x)  The  files  of  the  Classical  Journal  and 
the  Classical  weekly  contain  articles 
telling  the  benefits  of  the  study  of  the* 
dead  languages  and  giving  teachers  of 
these  subjects  ideas  as  how  to  carry 
on  the  work  of  proselytism  (Classical 
Journal  10:267),  (Classical  Weekly 
5:1,  Oct.  7,  '11  and  6:210-12  May  17, 
'13.) 


xxvi  BRIEF 

(y)  Most  of  the  books  and  magazine  arti- 
cles defending  the  study  of  the  dead 
languages  have  been  written  by  teach- 
ers of  these  subjects. 

(z)     Personal  and  individual  work  has  been 

carried  on  by  teachers  in  an  effort  to 

persuade     or    to    influence    individual 

students  to  take  the  dead  languages. 

(Lankester,    Natural    Science    and    the 

Classical  System  in  Education,    p.  202) 

V.  Although  opinion  evidence  cannot  be  given  great  weight 
in  any  debate,  the  preponderance  of  the  able  and  disin- 
terested opinion  is  strongly  opposed  to  the  study  of  the 
dead  languages. 

A.    Opinion  evidence  is  one  of  the  weakest  forms  of  evi- 
dence. 

1.  Opinion  evidence  is  admitted  in  a  court  of  law 
only  after  the  witness  has  been  qualified  as  an 
expert. 

2.  The  "best  evidence"  rule  of  the  law  rules  out  of 
court  poorer  evidence  when  the  best  evidence  is 
obtainable. 

(a)  Opinion  evidence  on  the  value  of  the  study 
of  the  dead  languages  can  only  be  construed 
as  meaning  a  total  absence  of  any  real  proof. 

(b)  Opinion  evidence  on  this  question  can  have 
little  weight  because  the  dead  languages  have 
been  studied  for  over  three  hundred  years 
and  if  the  results  are  as  good  as  claimed, 
then  it  would  be  easy  to  present  better  evi- 
dence than  opinions  in  their  defense. 

3.  All  opinions  of  teachers  of  the  dead  languages  as 
to  the  value  of  their  study  must  be  considered  as 
the    biased    testimony    of    persons    financially    in- 

»  terested  in  the  subject  of  the  controversy. 

4.  Many  of  the  opinions  given  in  the  propaganda  of 
the  Classical  associations  endorse  a  "thorough"  or 
a  "complete"  course  in  Latin  and  Greek,  and  not  a 
smattering  of  Latin,  which  is  all  that  the  average 
high  school  student  gets. 


BRIEF  xxvii 

The  opinions  of  many  able  and  financially  disinterested 
persons  can  be  cited  against  the  study  of  the  dead  \ 

languages.  ^^^ 

1.  Herbert  Spencer,  the  great  English  philosopher,  l^'^ 

2.  Prof.  Alexander  Bain. 

3.  Charles  W.  Eliot,  former  President  of  Harvard 
University,  and  one  of  the  greatest  of  all  Amer- 
ican educators. 

4.  David  Starr  Jordan,  Leland  Stanford  Junior  Uni- 
versity. 

5.  Thomas  H.  Huxley. 
6. 

7.  Abraham  Flexner.  '-{{^ 

8.  G.  Stanley  Hall,  President  of  Clark  University. 

9.  H.  G.  Wells,  the  eminent  English  writer.       ' 

10.     Sir   E.   Ray  Lankester,   the   eminent   English   sci- 
entist. .^<y'> 


Lord  Rosebury.  .«^' 


Alexander  Winchell.  ^^V  ^ '  * 

Benjamin  Franklin.  1^  ^ 

Prof.  Edward  A.  Ross.  -    ,-, 

President  Holmes  of  Drake  University,^  /ii<5^ 

Ralph  Waldo  Emerson.  J^v^  -^^^^^^  ^^ 

Charles  Francis  Adams. 


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p.  190.  Which  are  of  the  greater  importance  in  education,  the  classics 
or  mathematics.     Syllabi  and  references. 

p.  216.  Is  a  classical  education  essential  to  an  American  gentleman? 
references. 

General  References 
Books  and  Pamphlets 

Butler,  Nicholas  M.     The  meaning  of  education.     Macmillan  & 

Co.    1898. 

p.   172-7.     Greek  and  Latin. 
Catholic  Encyclopedia.     Robert  Appleton  &  Co.     1910. 

p.  32-4.     Latin  literature  in  the  church.     Paul  Lejay. 


XXX  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Eliot,  Charles  W.     Educational  reforms.     Century  Co.     1898. 

Fletcher,    Alfred    E.     Sonnenschein's    Cyclopedia    of    education. 
Swan,  Sonnenschein  &  Co.    1906. 
p.    S9-6i.     Classical  studies. 

John,  Walton  C.  Requirements  for  the  bachelor's  degree.  U.S. 
Bureau  of  Education.     1920. 

Kiddle,  Henry  and  Schem,  Alexander  J.     Cyclopedia  of  educa- 
tion.    Sampson  Low  &  Co.     1877. 
p.    139-42.     Classical  studies. 

fParker,  Charles  S.  On  the  history  of  classical  education  in 
essays  on  a  liberal  education.    Macmillan  1867. 

Reprinted  as  Chap.  II.  p.   14-90  in  Sir  Ray  Lankester's  Natural  Science 
and  the   Classical    System  in   Education.     William   Heinemann.    19 18. 

Ruediger,  William  C.  The  principles  of  education.  Houghton, 
Mifflin  Co.     1910. 

Sandys,  John  E.  A  history  of  classical  scholarship.  G.  P.  Put- 
nam's Sons.     1909. 

'•'Walsh,  James  J.  Education,  How  old  the  new.  Fordham  Uni- 
versity Press.     191 1. 

Periodicals 

American  Journal  of   Science.     15 :  328-36.   1828.     Report  on  a 

course  of  liberal  education,  Yale  College  Faculty. 
Atlantic    Monthly.      loi :  788-98.    Je.    '08.      The    case    of    Greek. 

Albert  G.  Keller. 
tAtlantic  Monthly.     121 :  222-31.     The  case  for  humility.     R.  K. 

Hack. 
Blackwood's  Magazine.     169:529-35.  Ap.  '01.     The  jeopardy  of 

Greek.     H.  W.  Auden. 
Blackwood's  Magazine.     179:667-75.  My.  '06.     Grammar  to  the 

wolves.    P.  A.  W.  Henderson. 
Century.    6:203-12.  Je.  '84.   What  is  a  liberal  education.    Charles 

W.  Eliot. 
Chautauquan.     43 :  200-1.  My.  '06.     Classical  language  and  edu- 
cation. 
Classical  Weekly.     10:217-20.  My.  21,  '17.     Classical  ideals  and 

American  life.     Albert  Shaw. 
Current  Opinion.    63:  117-18.  Ag.  '17.     The  new  world-war  that 

rages  around  Greek  and  Latin  literature. 
Current  Opinion.    64:114-15.  F.  '18.    Practical  importance  of  the 

war  between  science  and  the  classics. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


Dial.     56:94-5.    F.    I,   '14.     Revivifying   the    classic    languages. 
Nathan  H.  Dole. 

Education.      30:500-8.    Ap.    '10.      Secondary    education.      B.    F. 
Harding. 

Educational  Review.     32:461-72.  D.  '06.     The  position  of  Latin 
and  Greek  in  American  education.     Francis  W.  Kelsey. 

Educational  Review.    33 :  36-45.  Ja.  '07.    Humanistic  versus  real- 
istic education.     Friedrich  Paulsen. 

Educational  Review.    33 :  162-76.  F.  '07.    Latin  and  Greek  in  our 
Francis  W.  Kelsey. 
34 :  144-50.  S.  '07.    Classical  studies.    T 


E.. 


41:489-98.  My.  '11.     The  poor  results  in 


Function  of  Latin  in 


Shall   we  continue  to 


The    classics    and   the 


courses  of  study. 
Educational  Review. 

Page. 
Educational  Review. 

Latin  teaching.    J.  Remsen  Bishop. 
Educational  Review.     53  :  483-9.  My.  '17. 

the  curriculum.    J.  Crosby  Chapman. 
Fortnightly   Review.     9:95-105.   Ja.   '68. 

teach  Latin  and  Greek?     T.  Fowler.  . 
Harper's    Monthly.      139 :  761-4.    O    '19. 

practical  argument.    F.  M.  Colby. 
tHarvard  Graduates  Magazine.     28:69-74.  S.  '19.     Study  of  the 

ancients.     Albert  Bushnell  Hart. 
Independent.     35 :  1009-10.  Ag  9,  83.     Mr.  Adams's  arraignment 

of  the  Greek  language. 
Independent.    35 :  1645.  D.  27,  '83.    The  university  of  Berlin  and 

the  Greek  question. 
Independent.     55 :  47-8.  Ja.   i,  '03.     Classics  and  the  teachers  of 

them. 
Independent.    82:59.  Ap.  12,  '15. 
flndependent.    99:  185.  Ag.  9,  '19. 

lin  H.  Giddings. 
Literary  Digest.     55  :  31-2.  D.  8, 

their  lives  in  Britain. 
Nation.    83 : 6.  Jl.  5,  *o6.    Practical  side  of  the  classics. 
Nation.    94:354-5-  Ap.  11,  '12.     An  apostle  of  Greek. 
Nation.     104:676.  Je.  7,  '17.     The  battle  of  the  classics. 
Nation.     108:112.  Ja.  25,  '19.     Language,  literature,  or  history. 
National   Educational   Association,    Proceedings   and'  Addresses, 

1908.  p.  584-91.    A  shifting  of  ideals  respecting  the  efficiency 

of  formal  culture  studies  for  all  pupils.     J.  Remsen  Bishop. 


Latin  or  science. 
An  educational  hope. 


Frank- 


'17.     The  classics  on  trial  for 


xxxii  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

New  Republic.    6:295.  Ap.  15,  '16.    Books  and  things. 

New  Republic.  13:  177-8.  D.  15,  '17.  Prudence  and  the  classics. 
Emily  J.  Putnam. 

Outlook.     107:952-3.  Ag.  22,  '14.     Classical  studies. 

Outlook.     107:798-805.  Ag.  I,  '14.     That  bad  education. 

Outlook.  107:957-62.  Ag.  22,  '14.  The  classics  and  a  bad  edu- 
cation. 

Outlook.    121 :  365.  F.  26,  '19.    Boys  and  Latin.    A.  W.  Shepherd. 

Outlook.     122:463.  Jl.  23,  '19.    Classics  and  culture. 

Outlook.     122:498.  Jl.  30,  '19.     The  classics  and  reconstruction. 

Popular  Science  Monthly.  70:530-41.  Je.  '07.  The  acquisition  o£ 
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and  language  psychology.    E.  W.  Fay. 

Princeton  Review,  n.  s.  13 :  127-40.  Mr.  ^84.  Our  colleges  be- 
fore the  country.    William  G.  Sumner. 

Putnam's  Monthly.  3 :  418-24.  *o8.  A  classical  education.  Emily 
J.  Putnam. 

School  and  Society.  5:608-12.  My.  6,  '17.  The  classicist  or  the 
utilitarian.    Walter  H.  Siple. 

School  and  Society.  7:  174-8.  F.  9,  '18.  Classical  studies.  Gon- 
zalez Lodge. 

School  and  Society.  8:61-8.  Jl.  20,  '18.  The  inaugural  address 
of  the  president  of  Smith  College.    William  A.  Neilson. 

School  and  Society.  8:171-3.  Ag.  10,  '18.  Humanistic  studies 
and  their  relation  to  liberal  education.     David  Snedden. 

School  and  Society.  9:119-28.  Ja.  25,  '19.  The  present  status 
of  Greek  and  Latin  as  requirements  for  the  A.  B.  degree  in 
American  colleges  and  universities.     Gregory  D.  Walcott. 

*School  Review.  14 :  660-3.  N.  '06.  Classical  literature  through 
translation.    Edward  O.  Sisson. 

School  Review.  20:  254-61.  Ap.  '12.  The  status  of  Greek.  A.  A. 
Trever. 

School  Review.  21 :  618-26.  N.  '13.  Greek  and  Latin  in  the 
schools  of  Belgium.    John  G.  Winter. 

School  Review.  22:  45-7.  Ja.  '14.  Effect  of  the  non-requirement 
of  Latin 'for  graduation  upon  the  Latin  classes  of  the  high 
schools.    W.  R.  Pate. 

Unpopular  Review.  5:281-93.  Ap.  '16.  "Efficiency"  and  effi- 
ciency.   William  C.  Greene. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  xxxiii 

Westminster  Review.     162 :  92-9.  Jl.  '04.     Greek  and  Latin  as  a 

modern  study.    M.  E.  Robinson. 
Yale  Review  n.  s.    6:135-49.  O.  '16.    The  case  of  Latin.    A.  G. 

Keller. 
Yale  Review  n.  s.    6 :  150-66.  O.  '16.    Greek  in  the  new  university. 

Thomas  D.  Goodell. 

Affirmative  References 
Books  and  Pamphlets 

Adams,   James.     The   vitality   of   Platonism   and   other   essays. 

University  Press.     191 1. 

Chap.  6.     The  moral  and  intellectual  value  of  classical  education. 
American  Classical  League.     Dean  Andrew  F.  West,  President, 

Princeton,  N.  J. 

Among  the  pamphlets  printed  or  reprinted  and  sold  "slightly  below 
cost"  are: 

Why  study  Latin,  Willis  A.  Ellis. 

Our  need  of  the   Classics,  John  H.   Finley. 

Greek  in  English,   Rev.   Francis  P.   Donnelly. 

High   Schools  and  Classics,   Frederick  Irland. 

The  study  of  Latin  and  Greek  in  a  democracy,   Alfred    Croiset. 

An    engineer's    view    of   classical   study,   John    N.    Vedder. 

Why  the  full  Latin  requirement  should  be  kept,  Latin  departments 
of   Mt.    Holyoke,    Smith,  Vassar,   and   Wellesley   Colleges. 

Ashmore,  Sidney  G.     The  Classics  and  modern  training.     G.  P. 

Putnam's  Sons.     1905. 
Babbitt,  Irving.  Literature  and  the  American  college.   Houghton, 

Mifflin  &  Co.     1908. 
Bennett,  Charles  E.,  and  Bristol,   George  P.     The  teaching  of 

Latin  and  Greek  in  secondary  schools.     Longmans,  Green  & 

Co.     1901. 

Chap.  I.  The  justification  of  Latin  as  an  instrument  of  secondary 
education. 

Bristed,  Charles  A.    Five  years  in  an  English  University.    G.  P. 

Putnam  &  Sons.     1873. 

p.  476-505.  The  advantages  of  classical  studies,  particularly  in  ref- 
erence to  the  youth   of  our  country. 

*Bryce,  James.     The  worth  of  ancient  literature  to  the  modern 
world,  General  Education  Board.     1917. 

Byars,  William  V.    The  practical  value  of  the  Classics.     Nixon- 
Jones  Co.    1901. 

Chamberlain,  D.  H.    Not  a  college  fetich.    Willard  Small.     1884. 

Clarke,    John.      The    school    and    other    educators.      Longmans 
Green  &  Co.     1918. 
Chap.   10.     The  place  of  the  classics. 


xxxiv  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

♦Classical   Association    of    the   Atlantic    States.     The   practical 

value  of  Latin.     191 5. 
Classical  Association  of  the  Middle  West  and  South.     Various 

pamphlets  issued  by  the  publicity  committee. 
deTocqueville,  Alexis.     Democracy  in  America.     Colonial  Press. 

1900. 

Second  Part,   First   Book,   Chp^  XV.    (Vol.   2,   p.   65-7).     The   study  of 
Greek  and  Latin  literature  peculiarly  useful   in  democratic  communities. 

Forbes,  Charles  H.  The  sham  argument  against  Latin.  Class- 
ical Association  of  New  England.     191 7. 

Fouillee,  Alfred.    Education  from  a  national  standpoint.    D.  Ap- 

pleton  &  Co.    1892. 

Book  3,  p.   94-135-     The  classical  humanities   from   the  national  stand- 
point. 

Game,  Josiah  B.  Teaching  High  School  Latin.  University  of 
Chicago  Press.     1916. 

Chap.     I.      Latin's   immediate    service    in   education. 
Chap.     2.     Latin's  larger  service  in  education  and  in  life. 
Chap.     3.      Classical   studies   on    the    defensive. 
Chap.   16.     Questions  with  answers  and  suggestions. 

Hamilton,   William.     Discussions   on  philosophy  and   literature. 

Harper  &  Bros.     i860. 

p.   325-44.     On  the  conditions  of  classical  learning. 
Harrington,  Karl  P.    Live  issues  in  classical  study.    Ginn  &  Co. 

1910. 
Jebb,  Richard  C.     Humanities  in  education.     Macmillan  &  Co. 

1899. 
Jebb,  Richard  C.     Essays  and  addresses.     Cambridge  University 
Press.     1907. 

P-   545-9'    On  present  tendencies   in  classical  studies, 
p.  609-23.     An  address  delivered  at  the  Mason  College. 

Johnston,  Charles  H.     High  school  education.     Scribners.     1912. 

Chap.    13,   p.    257-66,   Latin. 
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Macmillan  &  Co.    1911. 
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p.   139-42.     Classical  studies. 
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tLivingstone,  R.  W.  A  Defense  of  classical  education.  Mac- 
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Alill,  John  Stuart.     Dissertations  and  discussions.     Henry  Holt 
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Vol.   4.  p.   332-407.     Inaugural  address. 

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Murray,  Gilbert.  The  religion  of  a  man  of  letters.  Houghton, 
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Owen,  William  B.  The  humanities  of  the  education  of  the  fu- 
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Osier,  Sir  William.  The  old  humanities  and  the  new  science. 
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Rouse,  W,  H.  D.  Classical  work  and  method  in  the  twentieth 
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Rouse,  W.  H.  D.    Machines  or  mind.    Wm.  Heineman.     1816. 

tSabin,  Frances  E.  The  relation  of  Latin  to  practical  life.  Mad- 
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Taylor,  Samuel  H.  Classical  study.  Its  value  illustrated  by  ex- 
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Thring,  Edward.  Theory  and  practice  of  teaching.  Cambridge 
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Urquhart,  D.  H.  Commentaries  on  classical  learning.  London. 
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Wickersham,  James  P.     Methods  of  instruction.     J.  B.  Lippin- 
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xxxvi  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

American   Institute    of    Instruction,    Lectures,    1876.      p.    39-50. 

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languages  and  literatures.    M.  H.  Buckham. 
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F.  West. 
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of  education.    E.  R.  Sill. 
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letter  to  the  Vice  Chancellor  of  Oxford  on  the  study  of  Greek. 
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in  the  lives  of  well  known  moderns.    Vincent  V.  Beede. 
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Frances  E.  Sabin. 
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Charles  H.  Weller. 
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M.  Lightfoot. 
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of  public  school  education.    E.  C.  E.  Owen. 
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from  a  Classical  education.     Caroline  R.  Gaston. 
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xxxviii  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Education.  37:440-4.  Mr.  '17.  More  than  two  years  of  Latin. 
Carrie  B.  Allen. 

tEducation.  38:668-84.  My.  '18.  "The  modern  school."  Paul 
Shorey. 

Educational  Review.  17:313-6.  Ap.  '99.  A  brief  for  Latin. 
William  T.  Harris. 

Educational  Review.  22 :  162-79.  S.  '01.  Imagination  in  the 
study  of  the  Classics.    Gonzalez  Lodge. 

Educational  Review.  23:407-19.  Ap.  '02.  The  Classics  in  mod- 
ern education.     William  Baird. 

Educational  Review.  29 :  185-90.  F.  '05.  A  plea  for  Caesar. 
Katharine  Darrin. 

tEducational  Review.  33 :  59-76.  Ja.  '07.  The  value  of  Latin  and 
Greek  as  educational  instruments.     Francis  W.  Kelsey. 

Educational  Review.  39:342-50.  Ap.  '10.  The  case  of  Greek 
again.     Hamilton  F.  Allen. 

Educational  Review.  42:304-7.  O.  '11.  Business  men  and  the 
Classics. 

Educational  Review.  43 :  449-60.  My.  '12.  May  the  modern  lan- 
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Educational  Review.  53 :  248-64.  Mr.  '17.  Some  reflections  on 
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Educational  Review.  54:439-50.  D.  '17.  The  passing  of  the 
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on  Classical  and  scientific  education. 


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most  worth.  •      • 


SELECTED  ARTICLES  ON  THE 
STUDY  OF  LATIN  AND  GREEK 


INTRODUCTION 

The  classical  system  of  education  may  be  said  to  date  from 
the  fall  of  Constantinople  in  1453.  When  the  eastern  capital  was  . 
taken  by  the  Turks,  the  scholars  fled  and  scattered  over  w^t- 
ern  Europe,  carrying  with  them  many  ancient  manuscripts,  which 
contained,  locked  up  in  the  dead  languages,  the  best  of  the 
knowledge  and  the  literature  that  then  existed  in  the  world. 
Through  the  next  hundred  years  the  study  of  the  ancient  class- 
ics, then  called  the  new  learning,  was  slowly,  often  reluctantly, 
accepted  as  the  basis  of  education.  It  was  the  Jesuit  Fathers 
who  first  proved  to  the  world  the  educational  value  of  the  study 
of  Latin  and  Greek. 

To  England,  and  from  England  to  America,  the  classical  sys- 
tem spread.  The  institutions  of  higher  education  in  this  country 
were  truly  classical  until  quite  recently.  As  a  rule  both  Latin 
and  Greek  were  required  for  admission  to  college  and  were  pre- 
scribed studies  in  college.  From  the  founding  of  Harvard  Col- 
lege in  1636  until  past  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century  a 
College  course  was  made  up  very  largely  of  the  study  of  Latin, 
Greek,  Ancient  History,  Philology,  and  Mathematics. 

Shortly  after  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century  the  de- 
mand for  modernized  higher  education  began  to  affect  the  cur- 
ricula of  American  colleges  and  universities.  The  Morrill  Act, 
approved  by  President  Lincoln  on  July  2,  1862,  provided  that 
the  Federal  Government  should  give  a  tract  of  land  to  any  state 
that  would  maintain  at  least  one  "College  where  the  leading  ob- 
jects shall  be,  without  excluding  other  scientific  and  classical 
studies  and  including  military  tactics,  to  teach  such  branches  of 
learning  as  are  related  to  agriculture  and  the  mechanic  arts  in 
such  manner  as  the  legislature  of  the  State  may  respectively  pre- 
scribe in  order  to  promote  the  liberal  and  practical  education 
of  the  industrial  classes  in  the  several  pursuits  and  professions 


2  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

of  life."  The  older  colleges  slowly  adjusted  themselves  to  the 
new  competition  and  to  the  popular,  demands  for  modern  edu- 
cation by  the  gradual  adoption  of  the  elective  system  and  by  de- 
creasing the  amount  of  the  dead  languages  required  for  admis- 
sion or  prescribed  during  the  college  course.  At  the  close  of  the 
first  decade  of  the  twentieth  century  many  of  our  colleges  and 
universities  require  no  dead  language  study  either  for  admission 
or  for  graduation,  while  scarcely  any  hold  to  the  old  require- 
ments. 

Latin  is  now  being  studied  by  about  two  fifths  of  the  students 
in  our  high  schools  and  academies  and  by  a  very  much  smaller 
percentage  of  the  students  in  the  colleges  and  universities. 
G^ek,  on  the  other  hand,  has  practically  disappeared  from  our 
educational  system,  being  now  studied  by  less  than  one  per  cent 
of  the  students  in  our  secondary  schools.  The  following  table, 
arranged  from  figures  given  in  the  report  of  the  U.  S.  Commis- 
sioner of  Education  for  1916  (p.  487-9),  shows  these  facts  as 
regards  the  pubHc  high  schools  in  America  during  the  past  thirty 
years : 

AMERICAN  PUBLIC  HIGH  SCHOOLS 


Number 

Number 

Per  cent 

Per  ce 

Total 

Studying 

Studying 

Studying 

Studyi 

Year 

Students 

Latin 

Greek 

Latin 

Greel 

1890 

202,963 

70,411 

6,202 

34.69 

3.05 

189s 

350,099 

153,950 

10,859 

43.97 

3.10 

1900 

530,425 

262,767 

14,813 

50.61 

2.85 

1905 

679,702 

341,248 

10,002 

50.21 

1.47 

1910 

739,143 

362,548 

5,511 

49.05 

.75 

191S 

1,165,495 

434,925 

3,351 

37.32 

.29 

Although  the  private  high  schools  in  1915  had  less  than  one 
tenth  of  the  total  high  school  enrollment,  still  in  that  year  they 
were  giving  instruction  in  Greek  to  more  than  twice  as  many 
students  as  were  the  public  high  schools,  as  is  shown  in  the  fol- 
lowing table. 

PRIVATE  HIGH  SCHOOLS  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 


Number 

Number 

Per  cent 

Per  cent 

Total 

Studying 

Studying 

Studying 

Studying 

Year 

Students 

Latin 

Greek 

Latin 

Greek 

1890 

94,931 

29,733 

6,667 

31.32 

7.02 

1895 

118,347 

51,056 

11,300 

43.14 

9.55 

1900 

188,816 

52,089 

10,056 

46.92 

9.77 

190S 

107,207 

49,819 

7,156 

46.47 

6.67 

1910 

78,510 

42,954 

S.228 

54.71 

6.61 

1915 

125,692 

69,060 

7,320 

54.94 

S.82 

These  two  tables  may  be  combined  to  produce  the  following 
statement : 


LATIN   AND   GREEK 
PUBLIC  AND  PRIVATE  HIGH  SCHOOLS 


Number 

Number 

Per  cent 

Per  cent 

Total 

Studying 

Studying 

Studying 

Studying 

Year 

Students 

Latin 

Greek 

Latin 

Greek 

1890 

297,894 

100,144 

12,869 

33.62 

4.32 

1895 

468,446 

205,006 

22,159 

43-76 

4.73 

1900 

719,241 

314,856 

24,869 

49-47 

3-95 

1905 

786,909 

391,067 

17,158 

49.69 

2.18 

1910 

817,653 

405,502 

10,739 

49.59 

1. 31 

1915 

1,291,187 

503,985 

10,671 

39-03 

.83 

From  these  figures  we  see  that  more  than  ninety-nine  per  cent 
of  the  high  school  pupils  in  America  are  not  studying  Greek,  and 
that  more  than  sixty  per  cent  of  them  are  not  taking  Latin.  It 
is  unfortunate  that  similar  figures  for  the  colleges  and  universi- 
ties are  not  available,  and  that  these  figures  should  begin  with 
so  late  a  date  as  1890.  Were  it  possible  to  give  figures  covering 
both  the  high  schools  and  the  colleges  for  the  past  hundred  years, 
they  would  tell  a  most  interesting  story. 

The  following  table  gives  the  percentage  of  students  in  the 
public  and  private  high  schools  combined  who  were  studying 
each  of  the  subjects  named  during  the  years  stated.  It  is  the 
best  data  available  on  this  point,  but  it  does  not  by  any  means 
convey  to  the  average  mind  an  accurate  idea.  Rather  it  seems 
to  give  the  impression  that  in  1915,  for  Instance,  about  one  half 
of  the  students  enrolled  were  taking  the  algebra  offered  in  the 
schools,  about  two  fifths  were  taking  the  Latin  offered,  and 
about  one  fourth  the  geometry.  Latin  is  usually  a  four  year 
study  while  algebra  and  geometry  are  usually  one  and  a  half 
year  studies,  but  only  one  year  studies  in  some  schools.  If  a 
high  school  had  just  four  hundred  students,  and  these  were 
equally  divided  with  one  hundred  in  each  of  the  four  years,  and 
if  each  student  took  at  the  appointed  time  the  full  four  years  of 
Latin  and  the  full  year  and  a  half  of  algebra  and  geometry,  then 
that  school  would  appear  in  the  following  table  with  these  re- 
sults; Latin  100  per  cent.  Geometry  50  per  cent.  Algebra  50 
per  cent,  while  the  fact  is  that  each  student  is  taking  all  of  each 
of  these  subjects  that  the  school  gives.  In  other  words,  the  max- 
imum percentage  that  geometry  or  algebra  could  make  in  such 
a  table  is  somewhat  over  fifty  as  the  number  of  first  and  second 
year  students  is  always  more  than  half  of  the  total  enrollment. 
When  this  table  states  that  the  percentage  of  students  taking  Eng- 
lish Literature  was  56.07  in  1915,  it  does  not  mean  that  only  about 


4  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

half  of  the  students  are  taking  Enghsh  Hterature,  but  rather  that 
the  average  student  takes  it  only  during  about  half  of  his  course. 


PERCENTAGE    OF    STUDENTS    IN    THE    PUBLIC    AND    PRIVATE 
HIGH  SCHOOLS  TAKING  THE  STUDIES  NAMED 

1890  1895  1900  190S  1910  1915 

English    literature ....  41.19  48.14  57.05  56.07 

Rhetoric      ....  31.31  37.70  47.30  56.59  55.6i 

History    27.83  34.65  37.80  40.50  55.67  51.46 

Algebra   42.77  52.40  55.08  56.43  56.92  49.26 

Latin 33.62  43.76  49.97  49.69  49.59  39.03 

Vocal    Music ....  ....  ....  ....  32.19 

Geometry    20.07  24.51  26.75  27.84  30.87  26.80 

German    n.48  12.58  15.06  20.34  23.60  24.19 

Drawing ....  ....  ....  ....  23.04 

Physical    geography      ....  22.44  22.88  21.05  19.14  14.66 

Physics    21.36  22.15  18.88  15.66  14.79  14.28 

Domestic  economy ....  ....  ....  4.14  12.69 

Manual     training ....  ....  ....  ....  10.64 

French     9.41            9.77  10.43  11.40  11.70  10.54 

Physiology      28.03  26.96  21.84  15.76  9.94 

Botany     ....  ....  ....  16.34  9-i5 

Civil   government ....  21.09  17.85  15.99  8.81 

Chemistry     9.62            9.31            8.00  7.04  7.13  7.63 

Civics    ....  ....  . . '. .  ....  7.20 

Agriculture     ....  ....  ....  4.55  6.92 

General    biology ....  ....  ....  ....  6.61 

Bookkeeping    ....  ....  ....  . .  •  •  3.29 

Zoology     ....  ....  ....  7.88  3.24 

Spanish     ....  ....  ....  .65  2.T2 

Trigonometry     3.25            2.42  2.19  2.18  1.74 

Psychology      3.35            3.19  1.84  1-35  i-43 

Industrial     ....  ....  ....  ....  1.12 

Greek     4.32            4.73            3.95  2.18  1.31  .83 

Geology 5.52            4.02  2.^2  1.38  .59 

Astronomy     5.27           3.43  1.71  .88  .45 

Would  a  wise  choice  of  studies  in  high  school  and  colleges 
now  include  Latin  and  Greek?  Is  the  study  of  the  ancient 
classics  still  the  best  form  of  a  liberal  education,  or  is  it  totally 
unsuited  to  the  educational  needs  of  the  twentieth  century? 
Does  the  study  of  the  dead  languages  give  a  superior  form  of 
mental  training,  one  that  is  the  best  foundation  and  preparation 
for  the  study  of  the  professions  and  the  sciences?  Is  it  indis- 
pensable to  a  thorough  understanding  and  a  fluent  command  of 
good  English?  Is  it,  indeed,  our  "birthright,"  as  the  Dean  of 
the  Graduate  School  at  Princeton  University  puts  it.  Or  is  it, 
on  the  other  hand,  a  dull  and  dismal  grind  that  tends  to  unfit 
a  person  for  a  successful  or  useful  career,  a  process  of  "Wear- 
ing away  the  energies  of  youth  in  mental  gymnastics"  as  Prof. 
Edward  A.  Ross  of  the  University  of  Wisconsin  characterizes 
classical  education,  a  study  from  which  "The  average  American 
high  school  boy  gets  less  than  out  of  any  other  study  in  the  cur- 


LATIN  AND  GREEK  5 

riculum"  as  David  Starr  Jordan,  President  of  Leland  Stanford 
Junior  University  wrote  of  Latin  a  few  years  ago? 

It  is  an  old,  old  controversy,  so  old  that  Rev.  Sydney  Smith 
said  in  the  Edinburgh  Review  one  hundred  eleven  years  ago 
(October  1809)  in  a  review  of  Edgeworth's  Professional  Edu- 
cation, after  he  had  agreed  with  the  author  that  the  main  fault 
in  the  then  existing  system  of  education  was  "Too  much  Latin 
and  Greek,"  that  "We  are  well  aware  that  nothing  very  new 
can  remain  to  be  said  upon  a  topic  so  often  debated."  The  wis- 
dom of  studying  the  dead  languages  has  always  been  more  or 
less  of  an  open  question.  Only  slowly  and  reluctantly  was  the 
system  introduced,  and  practically  ever  since  it  has  been  subject 
to  periodical  attacks  of  more  or  less  severe  criticism.  It  was 
two  hundred  years  ago  (Feb.  8,  1720),  that  Peter  Burman  on 
quitting  the  rectorship  of  the  University  of  Leyden,  delivered  his 
'famous  "Oratio  in  humanitatis  studia,"  the  English  title  of  which 
'is  "Oration  against  the  studies  of  humanity,  showing  that  the 
learned  languages.  History,  Eloquence  and  Critik  are  not  only 
useless,  but  also  dangerous  to  the  study  of  law,  physick,  philos- 
ophy and  above  all,  of  divinity,  to  which  last  poetry  is  a  special 
help."  Benjamin  Franklin  is  named  as  another  of  the  early  op- 
ponents of  the  classical  system.  In  1866  Herbert  Spencer  pub- 
lished his  great  work  on  education  with  its  vigorous  attack  upon 
the  classical  system  and  its  recommendation  of  science  as  the 
proper  basis  of  education.  At  the  commencement  exercises  of 
Harvard  University  in  1883  Charles  Francis  Adams,  Jr.,  de- 
livered his  famous  Phi  Beta  Kappa  oration  entitled,  "A  College 
Fetich,"  in  which  he  said  that  he  had  been  handicapped  in  his 
life  work  by  his  classical  education  at  Harvard,  that  in  requiring 
its  students  to  devote  so  much  time  to  Latin  and  Greek  the  col- 
lege stood  in  the  position  of  a  parent  whose  child  asked  for  bread 
and  was  given  a  stone.  In  1912  the  United  States  Commissioner 
of  Education  said  in  his  annual  report,  "The  current  educational 
criticism  considers  Latin  as  distinctly  unnecessary  in  a  people's 
School."  Charles  W.  Eliot,  one  of  America's  greatest  educators, 
Abraham  Flexner,  H.  G.  Wells,  President  G.  Stanley  Hall,  and 
Thomas  H.  Huxley  are  among  the  others  who  consider  both 
Greek  and  Latin  as  non-essentials. 

These  are  only  a  few  of  the  hundreds  who  have  sharply 
criticised  the  classical  system,  and  every ,  criticism  has  brought 
forth  brilliant  and  able  replies  from  such  men  as  John  Stuart 


6  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

Mill,  James  Russell  Lowell,  James  Bryce,  William  E.  Gladstone, 
Mathew  Arnold,  and  hundreds  of  those  who  are  or  have  been 
engaged  in  teaching  the  classics,  among  the  most  prominent  of 
whom  may  be  mentioned  Andrew  F.  West,  Paul  Shorey,  Francis 
W.  Kelsey,  Frances  E.  Sabin,  Josiah  B.  Game,  R.  W.  Livingstone, 
Gilbert  Murray,  W.  H.  D.  Rouse,  and  H.  C.  Nutting. 

For  generations  and  centuries  the  controversy  has  continued. 
Although  the  classics  have  slowly  but  surely  lost  ground  during 
the  past  half  century,  nevertheless  there  is  still  "much  that  may 
be  said  on  both  sides." 

In  few  subjects  for  debate  is  it  so  important  to  make  sure  of 
the  force  and  validity  of  the  arguments,  as  it  is  in  any  debate  on 
the  value  of  the  study  of  the  dead  languages.  It  seems  unneces- 
sary to  say  that  a  mere  assertion  without  proof  does  not  make  an 
argument,  and  yet  the  literature  of  this  question  abounds  with 
such  assertions.  That  Latin  or  Greek  or  both  are  necessary  or 
at  least  very  helpful  to  an  understanding  or  a  command  of  good 
English  is  a  claim  that  has  often  been  made  and  often  denied, 
but  very  seldom  has  there  been  even  an  attempt  to  prove  the 
proposition.  Witness  the  following  from  Dean  West's  "The 
Value  of  the  Classics."  (p.  29)  "But  for  the  mass  of  English 
speaking  men,  rare  spirits  excepted,  the  best  use  of  English  is 
not  attained  without  knowing  the  sources  whence  our  mother 
tongue  draws  its  life.  Nearly  half  of  it  is  Latin.  The  better  we 
know  Latin,  then,  the  better  our  use  of  English."  No  proof  is 
given  or  even  attempted.  Again,  an  editorial  in  the  Cleveland 
Plain  Dealer  for  June  6,  191 7  says,  "It  is  as  clear  as  day  that 
the  most  exhaustive  study  of  English  must  be  deficient  if  it  is 
not  based  on  some  knowledge  of  Latin  and  Greek."  So  clear 
that  it  is  unnecessary  to  give  even  a  suggestion  of  proof! 
However,  a  conscientious  judge  in  a  debate  will  give  little  credit 
to  a  debater  who  does  not  prove  such  an  assertion. 

Another  precaution  for  the  debater  is  in  regard  to  the  use  of 
opinion  evidence.  The  opinion  of  even  an  eminent  man  cannot  be 
considered  as  making  the  basis  of  a  valid  argument  unless  it  can 
be  shown  that  he  is  an  expert  in  the  subject  under  discussion,  and 
even  then  opinion  evidence  must  be  considered  as  one  of  the 
weakest  forms  of  argument.  Opinions  for  or  against  any  propo- 
sition are  always  easy  to  obtain,  the  same  as  letters  of  recom- 
mendation   or   signatures    to    a    referendum    petition.      Opinions 


LATIN    AND   GREEK  7 

when  used  in  a  debate  certainly  cannot  be  considered  as  having 
the  same  weight  as  conckisions  reasoned  out  and  proved. 

The  whole  controversy  over  the  value  of  the  stud}''  of  the 
dead  languages  will  in  actual  debate  often  turn  on  the  question  of 
the  purpose  of  education.  Does  higher  education  exist  for  the  pur- 
pose of  creating  a  well  developed  personality,  one  capable  of  en- 
joying the  beautiful  in  art,  architecture,  and  literature,  or  is  its 
purpose  rather  to  prepare  each  individual  to  fill  a  useful  place 
in  his  community  and  enable  him  to  render  the  greatest  service 
to  society?  In  any  debate  on  this  question  there  might  well  be  an 
interpretation,  acceptable  to  both  sides,  which  would  define  edu- 
cation and  the  purpose  of  education. 

Lamar  T.  Beman. 


GENERAL  DISCUSSION 

CLASSICAL  STUDIES  ^ 

Since  the  revival  of  learning  the  place  of  honor  in  the  edu- 
cational systems  of  Europe  has  been  occupied  by  the  study  of 
the  classics.  During  the  period  of  scholasticism  (until  the  end 
of  the  fifteenth  century)  interest  in  Greek  and  Latin  literature 
had  been  decaying;  the  impulse  given  by  Charlemagne  in  found- 
ing schools  for  the  study  of  Latin  and  also  of  Greek  died  out, 
and  Latin  was  cultivated  for  practical  purposes  only,  and  as  a 
matter  of  necessity;  for  Latin  was  the  only  universal  medium  of 
communication,  and  was  the  language  of  the  church  and  the 
law.  The  Renaissance — that  great  reaction  against  medisevalism 
^-resulted  in  the  first  place  in  a  revived  study  of  Greek  and 
Latin;  the  Classics  were  studied  in  the  spirit  of  Schiller's  poem 
Die  Gotter  Griechenlands,  as  embodying  the  wisdom  and  beauty 
of  a  lost  order  of  things,  as  a  voice  from  a  higher  world.  For 
the  practical  study  of  Latin  was  substituted  the  study  of  Greek 
and  Latin  literature.  At  the  present  day  (1906)  the  classics  may 
be  said  to  be  engaged  in  the  struggle  for  existence.  Both  in 
England  and  abroad  there  is  a  strong  party  claiming  as  a  right 
the  abolition  of  the  classics,  or  at  any  rate  .their  relegation  to  a 
subordinate  position. 

The  main  contention  of  the  supporters  of  a  modern  educa- 
tion is  that  so  many  other  subjects  of  modern  growth  demand 
recognition  in  a  scheme  of  education,  that  time  cannot  be  spared 
for  the  long  discipline  of  Greek  and  Latin,  that  time  devoted  to 
the  classics  would  be  sufficient  to  embrace  a  complete  cycle  of  the 
physical  sciences.  Modem'  languages  are  a  discipline  in  lan- 
guage, and  might,  from  that  point  of  view,  make  good  in  part, 
if  not  entirely,  the  loss  of  the  classics,  while  their  practical  utility 
cannot  be  left  out  of  sight  by  a  commercial  nation  like  ourselves. 
The  study  of  English  literature  would,  it  is  maintained  by  Prof. 
Huxley,  be  a  far  better  school  of  literary  taste  and  culture  than 
that  of  the  writers  of  Greece  and  Rome;  "The  ascent  of  Par- 

*  Sonnenschein's  Cyclopedia  of   Education,    p.   59-61. 


lo  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

nassus  is  too  steep  to  permit  of  our  enjoying  the  view",  and  few 
reach  the  top.  What  there  is  of  good  in  the  classics  could  be 
better  studied,  from  the  aesthetic  point  of  view,  in  translations. 
"I  should  just  as  soon  think  of  swimming  across  the  Hudson  in 
a  coat  of  mail  when  I  can  take  a  penny  steamer,"  cries  Emerson, 
"as  of  studying  the  classics  in  the  original  when  I  can  read  them 
in  the  admirable  translations  of  Mr.  Bohn."  "The  classics,"  says 
Prof.  Huxley,  "are  as  little  suited  to  be  the  staple  of  a  liberal 
education  as  palaeontology."  The  great  aim  of  education,  he 
holds,  is  to  impart  a  knowledge  of  the  universe  as  governed  by 
law.  Nature  he  compares  to  a  beneficient  angel  playing  a  game 
of  chess  with  man,  in  which  defeat  means  death.  Science  is  a 
knowledge  of  the  laws  of  the  game.  Thus  the  demand  is  for 
what  has  been  called  an  "Autochthonous"  education — an  educa- 
tion rooted  in  modern  life  and  modern  needs.  That  such  an 
education  is  a  possibility  is  proved  by  the  example  of  Greece, 
herself.  From  the  point  of  view  of  training,  Mr.  Herbert 
Spencer  and  Mr.  Ruskin  maintain  that  "The  science  which  it  is 
the  highest  power  to  possess,  it  is  also  the  best  exercise  to'  ac- 
quire;" in  fact,  that  there  is  a  sort  of  pre-established  harmony 
between  utility  and  educative  value. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  classics  are  not  without  powerful 
champions.  John  Stuart  Mill,  not  himself  a  blind  worshiper  of 
"authority,"  held  most  strongly  that  nothing  could  replace  Latin 
and  Greek  as  educational  instruments.  He  defended  them 
mainly  on  the  score  of  formal  training.  "The  distinctions  be,A 
tween  the  various  parts  of  speech  are  distinctions  in  thoughi 
not  merely  in  words.  The  structure  of  every  sentence  is  a  lesson  j 
in  logic.  The  languages  which  teach  the  laws  of  universal  gram-/ 
mar  best  are  those  which  have  the  most  definite  rules,  and  which; 
provide  distinct  forms  for  the  greatest  number  of  distinctions  in; 
thought.  In  these  qualities  the  classical  languages  have  an  in- 
comparable superiority  over  every  modern  language";  it  might 
be  added  over  Hebrew  and  Sanskrit.  Again,  in  perfection  of 
literary  form  the  ancients  are  pre-eminent;  the  "idea"  has 
thoroughly  penetrated  the  form  and  created  it.  Every  word  is 
in  its  right  place — every  sentence  a  work  of  art.  Modern  liter- 
ature lacks  the  simplicity  and  directness  of  the  ancient  classics. 
What  they  would  have  expressed  in  a  single  sentence,  a  modern 
writer  will  throw  into  three  or  four  different  forms,  presenting 
it  under  different  lights.     In  fact.  Mill  claims  for  classical  liter- 


LATIN   AND   GREEK  ii 

ature  what  Hegel  claimed  for  classical  art,  that  the  form  and 
the  matter  are  adequate  one  to  the  other.  But  even  though  the 
stage  of  literary  enjoyment  be  not  reached,  there  are  many  who 
hold  that  the  training  involved  in  a  mastery  of  the  elements  of 
Latin  is  invaluable.  Modern  languages  are  too  like  our  own  to 
give  the  degree  of  emancipation  from  the  thraldom  of  words 
which  comes  from  comparing  classic  with  English  modes  of  ex- 
pression. To  translate  "I  should  have  spoken"  into  dixissem  is 
more  of  a  lesson  in  thought  than  to  translate  it  into  Ich  wiirde 
gesprochen  hahen,  or  J'aurais  dit  because  the  form  is  more  dif- 
ferent. Still  greater  stress  is  laid  upon  the  educational  value  of 
the  higher  kinds  of  composition.  The  recasting  of  the  thought, 
the  exercise  of  the  vis  divinor  involved  in  clothing  an  idea  in 
Greek  or  Latin,  has  been  called  the  microcosm  of  a  liberal  edu- 
cation. (A.  Sidgwick)  Perhaps  the  strongest  testimony  of  mod- 
ern times  to  the  value  of  a  classical  education  is  the  Berlin 
memorial  of  1880,  addressed  to  the  Prussian  Minister  of  Educa- 
tion, on  the  question  of  admission  of  Realschuler  to  the  univer- 
sities. This  memorial  represents  the  imanimous  views  of  the 
members  of  the  faculty  of  philosophy  (i.e.  arts  and  sciences)  and^ 
was  signed  by  Hoffman,  Helmholtz,  Peters,  Zupitza,  etc.  as  well 
as  by  the  classical  professors.  The  memorial  insists  upon  the 
value  of  classical  philology  in  cultivating  the  ideality  of  the  sci- 
entific sense,  the  interest  in  science  not  dependent  on  nor  limited 
by  practical  aims,  but  as  ministering  to  the  liberal  education  of 
the  mind  and  the  many  sided  exercise  of  the  thinking  faculty. 
To  hold  the  scales  between  views  so  strongly  held  and  so 
ably  maintained  is  a  difficult  task,  but  must  be  attempted  here. 
In  the  first  place,  it  may  be  well  to  dispose  of  certain  fallacies 
which  rest  upon  popular  prejudice  rather  than  upon  any  basis  of 
reason  or  experience,  i.  That  the  classics  train  only  the  mem- 
ory, not  thought  or  observation.  It  may  fairly  be  replied  that 
though  memory  is  involved,  it  is  not  necessarily  involved  more 
than  in  any  other  discipline.  The  learning  of  grammar  by  rote 
is  falling  out  of  favor;  the  dictionary  meanings  of  words  are 
learned  not  by  a  conscious  exercise  of  the  portative  memory, 
but  in  the  same  way  as  the  names  of  flowers  or  animals  in  study- 
ing natural  history.  The  syntactical  structure  of  Latin  and 
Greek  is  more  logical  in  its  character  than  anything  in  the  disci- 
pline of  physical  sciences.  Observation — not,  of  course,  sense- 
observation — is  constantly  exercised  in  translation  and  composi- 


12  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

tion.  Nor  is  it  practically  found  that  classical  scholars  are  less 
capable,  as  thinkers,  than  physicists.  2.  That  classics  foster  a 
blind  adherence  to  authority.  But  no  one  nowadays  holds  that 
the  classic  writers  are  all  equally  worthy  of  admiration,  or  claims 
any  special  consideration  for  the  opinions  which  they,  express. 
Grammar  is  not  the  arbitrary  creation  of  schoolmasters,  but  the 
record  of  law  discovered  by  patient  observation,  and  liable  to  re- 
vision by  any  competent  inquirer.  Mill  held  precisely  the  op- 
posite opinion  as  to  the  effects  of  classical  study.  3.  That  there 
is  something  grotesque  and  mediaeval  in  classical  studies.  It 
has  been  shown  above  that  so  far  from  being  mediaeval,  the 
classics  have  established  their  position  in  our  schools  and  uni- 
versities by  a  revolt  against  medisevalism.  4.  That  the  methods 
of  teaching  the  classics  cannot  be  further  improved.  So  far  is 
this  from  being  true,  that  the  scientific  problem  of  constituting 
the  rules  of  grammar  is  still  only  in  the  process  of  solution,  and 
the  existence  of  the  didactic  problem  of  determining  what  and 
how  much  should  be  taught  at  each  stage  has  only  begun  to  be 
realized  in  its  full  import 

On  the  other  hand,  the  champions  of  physical  science  do  not 
always  have  fair  play.  It  is  popularly  supposed  that  "science" 
consists  in  accumulation  of  information  such  as  that  when  a 
candle  burns  water  and  carbonic  acid  are  produced,  and  that  the 
good  of  physical  science  may  be  got  by  studying  its  results  in 
books.  This  is  to  misunderstand  and  underrate  the  discipline  of 
the  laboratory.  The  value  of  training  in  the  physical  sciences  is 
not  to  be  measured  by  the  possession  of  so  many  useful  facts 
about  gases,  plants,  and  animals.  If  richly  pursued,  it  involves 
not  only  a  power  of  sense-observation,  without  which  a  man  must 
be  considered  as  so  far  maimed  and  defective,  but  also  a  habit 
of  mind  and  attitude  towards  the  universe,  which  have  a  very 
direct  bearing  upon  both  the  criticism  and  the  conduct  of  life. 
The  man  or  woman  who  has  physiological  knowledge  will  be  so 
far  in  a  better  position  to  make  a  study  of  health,  and  to  bring 
up  chiidren  wisely;  will  be  less  likely  to  ignore  "the  laws  of  the 
game,"  to  believe  in  the  domination  of  chance,  and  to  make  rash 
experiments  in  amateur  medicine.  For  to  be  scientific  is  to  know 
one's  limitations,  and  this  is  a  power. 

The  practical  question  is,  to  what  extent  can  we  afford  to 
make  education  as  complete  as  possible,  and,  supposing  that 
something- has  to  be  sacrificed,  what  is  it  best  to  sacrifice?    That 


LATIN   AND   GREEK  13 

the  literary  side  of  education  cannot  be  even  relatively  complete 
without  classics  may  be  taken  as  demonstrated.  Our  study  of 
Greek  and  Latin  's  not  so  much  the  study  of  a  foreign  culture 
as  the  study  of  our  own  past;  so  intimately  is  modern  culture 
connected,  through  the  Renaissance,  with  Greece  and  Rome. 
We  stand  to  the  classics  in  a  different  relation  from  that  in  which 
they  stood  to  anterior  civilizations.  Greek  culture  was,  generally 
speaking,  autochthonous;  modern  culture  is  not.  And  the  man 
who  has  no  Latin  or  Greek  finds  himself  unable  to  prosecute  his 
literary  studies  far,  or  to  be  a  master  even  in  the  literature  of  his 
own  country.  Still  the  question  remains,  can  we  afford  to  pur- 
chase this  completeness  at  the  price  which  it  costs — a  less  com- 
plete developement  in  the  direction  of  modern  studies?  The 
answer  to  it  must  depend  upon  the  aim  which  people  set  before 
themselves  in  life — upon  utility  in  its  broad  sense — and  upon  the 
length  of  the  school  course.  For  those  whose  tastes  are  literary 
or  artistic,  classics  may  be  the  most  useful  of  studies;  for  those 
who  have  to  contemplate  an  early  entrance  into  practical  pursuits, 
they  may  well  be  a  luxury  of  too  high  a  cost.  At  the  present  day 
the  classics  retain  a  firm  hold  of  our  higher  English  schools,  and 
Latin,  at  any  rate,  is  becoming  recognized  as  an  important  item 
in  the  education  of  girls. 


MEDIAEVAL  SCIENTIFIC  UNIVERSITIES  \ 

We  are  prone  to  think  of  the  old-time  universities  as  classical 
or  literary  schools  with  certain  limited  post-graduate  features, 
more  or  less  distantly  smacking  of  science.  '  The  reason  for  this 
is  easy  to  understand.  It  is  because  out  of  such  classical  and 
literary  colleges  our  present  universities,  with  their  devotion  to 
science,  were  developed  or  transformed  during  the  last  generation 
or  two.  It  is  to  be  utterly  ignorant  of  mediaeval  education,  how* 
ever,  to  think  that  the  classical  and  literary  schools  are  types  of 
university  work  in  the  Middle  Ages.  The  original  universities 
of  the  thirteenth  and  fourteenth  centuries  paid  no  attention  to 
language  at  all  except  inasmuch  as  Latin,  the  universal  language, 
was  studied  in  order  that  there  might  be  a  common  ground  of 
understanding.  Latin  w^as  not  studied  at  all,  however,  from  its 
literary  side;  to  style  as  such  the  professors  in  the  old  mediaeval 

» Walsh,  James  J.     Education,  How   Old  the  New.    p.    103-8. 


14  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

universities  and  the  writers  of  the  books  of  the  time  paid  no  at- 
tention. Indeed  it  was  because  of  this  neglect  of  style  in  litera- 
ture and  of  the  niceties  of  classical  Latin  that  the  university  men 
of  recent  centuries  before  our  own,  so  bitterly  condemned  the 
old,  mediaeval  teachers  and  were  so  utterly  unsympathetic  with 
their  teaching  and  methods.  We,  however,  have  come  once  more 
into  a  time  when  style  means  little,  indeed,  entirely  too  little,  and 
when  the  matter  is  supposed  to  be  everything,  and  we  should 
have  more  sympathy  with  our  older  forefathers  in  education  who 
were  in  the  same  boat.  We  have  inherited  traditions  of  mis- 
understanding in  this  matter,  but  we  should  know  the  reasons 
for  them  and  then  they  will  disappear. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  exactly  the  same  thing  happened  in  our 
modern  change  of  university  interests  during  the  latter  half  of 
the  nineteenth  century  as  happened  in  the  latter  half  of  the 
fifteenth  century  in  Italy,  and  in  the  next  century  throughout 
Europe.  With  the  fall  of  Constantinople  the  Greeks  were  sent 
packing  by  the  Turks  and  they  carried  with  them  into  Italy  man- 
uscripts of  the  old  Greek  authors,  examples  of  old  Greek  art  and 
the  classic  spirit  of  devotion  to  literature  as  such.  A  new  educa- 
tional movement  termed  the  study  of  the  humanities  had  been 
making  some  way  in  Italy  during  the  preceding  half-century  be- 
fore the  fall  of  Constantinople,  but  now  interest  in  it  came  with 
a  rush.  The  clergymen,  the  nobility,  even  the  women  of  the 
time  became  interested  in  the  New  Learning,  as  it  was  called. 
Private  schools  of  various  kinds  were  opened  for  the  study  of 
it,  and  everybody  considered  that  it  was  the  one  thing  that  people 
who  wanted  to  keep  up  to  date,  smart  people,  for  they  have 
always  been  with  us,  should  not  fail  to  be  familiar  with.  The 
humanities  became  the  fashion,  just  as  science  became  the 
fashion  in  the  nineteenth  century.  Fashion  has  a  wonderfully 
pervasive  power  and  it  runs  in  cycles  in  intellectual  matters  as 
well  as  in  clothes. 

The  devotees  of  the  New  Learning  demanded  a  place  for  it  in 
the  universities.  University  faculties  perfectly  confident,  as  uni- 
versity faculties  always  are,  that  what  they  had  in  the  curriculum 
was  quite  good  enough,  and  conservative  enough  to  think  that 
what  had  been  good  enough  for  their  forefathers  was  surely 
good  enough  also  for  this  generation,  refused  to  admit  the  new 
studies.    For  a  considerable  period,  therefore,  the  humanities  had 


LATIN   AND  GREEK  15 

to  be  pursued  in  institutions  apart  from  the  universities.  Indeed 
it  was  not  until  the  Jesuits  showed  how  valuable  classical  studies 
might  be  made  for  developmental  purposes  and  true  education 
that  they  were  admitted  into  the  universities. 

Note  the  similarity  with  certain  events  in  our  own  time  in 
all  this.  Two  generations  ago  the  universities  refused  to  admit 
science.  They  were  training  men  in  their  undergraduate  depart- 
ments by  means  of  classical  literature.  They  argued  exactly  as 
did  the  old  mediaeval  universities  with  regard  to  the  new  learn- 
ing, that  they  had  no  place  for  science.  Science  had  to  be 
learned,  then,  in  separate  institutions  for  a  time.  The  scientific 
educational  movement  made  its  way,  however,  until  finally  it  was 
admitted  into  the  university  curricula.  Now  we  are  in  the  midst 
of  an  educational  period  when  the  classics  are  losing  in  favor  so 
rapidly  that  it  seems  as  though  it  would  not  be  long  before  they 
would  be  entirely  replaced  by  the  sciences,  except,  in  so  far  as 
those  are  concerned  who  are  looking  for  education  in  literature 
and  the  classic  languages  for  special  purposes. 

It  will  be  interesting,  then,  to  trace  the  story  of  the  old 
mediaeval  universities  as  far  as  the  science  in  their  curriculum 
was  concerned,  because  it  represents  much  more  closely  than  we 
might  have  imagined,  or  than  is  ordinarily  thought,  the  preced- 
ing phase  of  education  to  the  classical  period  which  we  have  seen 
go  out  of  fashion  to  so  great  an  extent  in  the  last  two  genera- 
tions. We  shall  readily  find  that  at  least  as  much  time  was  de- 
voted in  the  mediaeval  universities  to  the  physical  sciences  as  in 
our  own,  and  that  the  culture  sciences  filled  up  the  rest  of  the 
curriculum.  Philosophy,  v^hich  occupied  so  prominent  a  place 
in  older  university  life,  was  not  only  a  culture  science,  but  phys- 
.  ical  science  as  well,  as  indeed  the  name  natural  philosophy,  which 
remained  almost  down  to  our  day,  attests. 

Physical  science  was  not  the  sole  object  of  these  mediaeval 
institutions  of  learning,  but  they  were  thoroughly  scientific.  The 
main  object  of  the  universities  in  the  olden  time  was  to  secure 
such  discussion  of  the  problems  of  man's  relation  to  the  universe, 
to  his  Creator,  to  his  fellow-creatures  and  to  the  material  world 
as  would  enable  him  to  appreciate  his  rights  and  duties  and  to 
use  his  powers.  Huxley  declared  that  the  trivium  and  quad- 
rivium,  the  seven  liberal  arts  studied  in  the  mediaeval  universities, 
probably  demonstrate  a  clearer  and  more  generous  comprehen- 


i6  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

sion  of  what  is  meant  by  culture  than  the  curriculum  of  any 
modern  university.  Language  was  learned  through  grammar, 
the  science  of  language.  Reasoning  was  learned  through  logic, 
the  science  of  reasoning;  the  art  of  expression  through  rheto- 
ric, a  combination  of  art  and  science  with  applications  to  prac- 
tical life.  Mathematics  was  studied  with  a  zeal  .and  a  success 
that  only  those  who  know  the  history  of  mediaeval  mathematics 
can  at  all  appreciate.  Cantor,  the  German  historian  of  mathe- 
matics, in  hundreds  of  pages  of  a  large  volume,  has  told  the 
story  of  the  development  of  mathematics  during  the  centuries  be- 
fore the  Renaissance,  that  is  from  the  thirteenth  to  the  fifteenth, 
in  a  way  that  makes  it  very  clear  that  the  teaching  at  the  uni- 
versities in  this  subject  was  not  dry  and  sterile,  but  eminently 
productive,  successful  in  research,  and  with  constant  additions  to 
knowledge  such  as  live  universities  ought  to  make. 

Then  there  was  astronomy,  metaphysics,  theology,  music, 
law  and  medicine.  The  science  of  law  was  developed  and,  above 
all,  great  collections  of  laws  made  for  purposes  of  scientific 
study.  Of  astronomy  every  one  was  expected  to  know  much, 
of  medicine  we  shall  have  considerable  to  say  hereafter,  but  in 
the  meantime  it  is  well  to  recall  that  these  mediseval  centuries 
maintained  a  high  standard  of  medical  education  and  brought 
some  wonderful  developments  in  the  sciences  allied  to  medicine 
and  above  all  in  their  applications  to  therapeutics.  Surgery 
never  reached  so  high  a  plane  of  achievement  down  to  our  own 
time,  as  during  the  period  when  it  was  studied  so  faithfully  and 
developed  so  marvellously  at  the  mediaeval  universities.  It  was 
inasmuch  as  a  knowledge  of  physics  was  needed  for  the  develop- 
ment of  metaphysics  that  the  mediaeval  schoolmen  devoted  them-- 
selves  to  the  study  of  nature.  They  turned  with  as  much  ardor 
and  devotion  as  did  Herbert  Spencer  in  the  nineteenth  century, 
to  the  accumulation  of  such  information  with  regard  to  nature 
as  would  enable  them  to  draw  conclusions,  establish  general  prin- 
ciples and  lay  firm  foundations  for  reasonings  with  regard  to 
the  creature  and  the  Creator.  It  is,  above  all,  this  phase  of 
mediaeval  teaching  work,  of  the  schoolmen's  ardent  interest  that 
is  misunderstood,  often  ignored  and  only  too  frequently  mis- 
represented in  the  modern  time. 


LATIN  AND  GREEK  17 


REQUIREMENTS  FOR  THE  BACHELOR'S 
DEGREE  ^ 

(a)    College  Entrance  Requirements 
Colonial  Period 

Latin  and  Greek. — The  history  of  college  entrance  require- 
ments in  the  United  States  begins  in  1642,  when  Harvard  Col- 
lege published  the   following  announcement: 

When  any  scholar  is  able  to  read  Tully  or  such  like  classical  Latin 
Author  extempore,  and  make  and  speak  true  Latin  in  verse  and  prose 
(suo  (ut  aiunt  Marte),  without  any  assistance  whatever  and  decline  per- 
fectly the  paridigms  of  nouns  and  verbs  in  ye  Greek  tongue,  then  may 
hee  bee  admitted  into  ye  College,  nor  shall  any  claim  admission  before 
such   qualifications. 

The  foregoing  is  a  translation  from  the  Latin  of  a  part  of  the 
college  statutes. 

In  the  College  of  William  and  Mary,  Latin  and  Greek  were 
the  only  subjects  required  for  entrance  at  the  beginning  of  its 
career  in  1693,  although  no  definite  statement  of  the  requirements 
is  given. 

As  early  as  1720,  Yale  College  made  the  following  announce- 
ment : 

Such  as  are  admitted  Students  into  ye  Collegiate  School  shall  in  their 
examination  in  order  thereunto  be  found  expert  in  both  ye  Latine  and 
Greek  grammars,  as  also  skilful  in  construing  and  grammatically  resolving 
both   Latine   and  Greek  authors   and  in    making  good  and  true  latin. 

As  time  progressed  some  difficulty  was  found  at  Harvard  in 
keeping  up  that  part  of  the  requirement  which  obliged  the  candi- 
dates to  speak  Latin.  In  1734  this  obstacle  was  removed,  and  in 
1790  the  word  "translate"  was  substituted  for  the  word  "construe." 
Yale  followed  suit  in  1795. 

Arithmetic. — In  1745,  Yale  College  added  common  arithmetic 
to  the  entrance  requirements.  At  the  same  time  the  moral  char- 
acter of  the  candidates  was  not  overlooked,  as  is  shown  by  the 
following:  "And  shall  bring  sufficient  testimony  of  his  blameless 
and  inoffensive  life." 

Princeton,  in  1746,  based  the  entrance  standards  on  the  same 
grounds  as  those  of  Harvard  and  Yale,  but  did  not  include  arith- 
metic until  1760.    This  subject,  however,  seems  to  have  dropped 

*  Walton  C.  John.    Requirements  for  the  Bachelor's  Degree.   (Chap,  i.) 


i8  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

out  until  1813  when  the  student  was  supposed  to  know  the  subject 
as  far  as  the  rule  of  three. 

Columbia  College,  which  began  as  King's  College  in  1754,  pre- 
scribed Latin,  Greek,  and  arithmetic  for  entrance.  Both  Brown 
and  WilHams  had  essentially  the  same  requirements. 

Entrance  examinations  (oral). — During  the  colonial  period 
most  students  prepared  for  college  at  the  Latin-grammar  schools 
which  were  closely  related  to  the  colleges.  The  examinations 
were  oral  and  not  so  strict  as  might  have  been  expected. 

The  Nineteenth  Century 

Geography. — In  1807,  geography  and  arithmetic  were  added 
to  the  usual  requirements  at  Harvard  College,  and  there  is  evi- 
dence of  greater  care  in  stating  the  terms  of  admission.  The 
amount  of  work  in  each  subject  was  more  clearly  indicated. 
Neither  was  quality  overlooked  when  we  find  within  small  com- 
pass such  expressions  as  these :  '^Thoroughly  acquainted  with  the 
grammar  of  the  Greek;"  "properly  construe  and  parse,"  etc.;  "be 
well  instructed  in  the  following  rules  of  arithmetic;"  "have  well 
studied  a  compendium  of  geography."  Geography  found  a  place 
as  an  entrance  requirement  before  1830  in  Princeton,  Columbia, 
Yale,  and  other  colleges. 

English  grammar. — ^The  next  preparatory  subject  introduced 
was  English  grammar.  Princeton  led  out  with  this  subject  in 
1819,  being  followed  by  Yale  in  1822,  Columbia  in  i860,  and  by 
Harvard  in  1866. 

Algebra  and  geometry. — Harvard  was  the  first  college  to  ex- 
tend the  entrance  requirement  in  mathematics  beyond  arithmetic. 
In  1820  elementary  algebra  was  added  as  far  as  geometrical  pro- 
gressions. Algebra  was  prescribed  for  entrance  by  Columbia  in 
1821,  by  Yale  in  1847,  and  by  Princeton  in  1848.  In  1844  Harvard 
added  geometry  and  additional  topics  in  algebra.  Between  1856 
and  1870  geometry  was  added  to  the  entrance  requirements  by 
Yale,  Princeton,  Michigan,  and  Columbia. 

History;  physical  geography. — History  was  required  for  en- 
trance by  Harvard  and  Michigan  in  1847;  by  Cornell  in  1868. 
Physical  geography  was  found  in  the  requirements  for  Harvard 
and  Michigan  in  1870. 


LATIN   AND   GREEK  19 


The  Modern  Period 

Modern  languages. — Harvard  College  was  the  first  to  make 
French  an  entrance  requirement  for  the  regular  college  course, 
although  in  the  early  part  of  the  nineteenth  century  Columbia 
College  had  recognized  this  language  as  a  prerequisite  to  its 
courses  in  science.  By  1875,  both  French  and  German  had  equal 
recognition  as  entrance  subjects  at  Harvard.  Yale  added  French 
in  1885,  Columbia  in  1891,  Princeton  in  1893,  and  Cornell  in  1897. 

English  composition  and  rhetoric. — English  composition  was 
included  in  the  entrance  requirements  of  Princeton  in  1870.  The 
colleges  next  to  add  this  subject  were  Harvard  in  1874,  Michigan 
in  1878,  Columbia  and  Cornell  in  1882,  and  Yale  in  1894.  Rhe- 
toric had  been  required  by  the  University  of  Michigan  from  1874 
to  1878,  while  Princeton  added  the  latter  subject  in  1884. 

Sciences. — Although  Harvard  and  Michigan  had  already  in- 
troduced physical  geography  in  1870,  Syracuse  University  was 
the  first  to  prescribe  natural  philosophy.  Natural  science  was 
added  to  the  requirements  by  Harvard  in  1876,  Cornell  followed 
with  physiology  in  1877,  and  Michigan  included  natural  science 
and  botany  in  1890. 

It  is  apparent  that  the  order  of  importance  of  prescribed  en- 
trance subjects  has  been  completely  reversed  in  recent  years. 
Until  a  few  years  ago  Latin  and  Greek  had  always  occupied  first 
place,  but  since  1885  English  has  gained  the  ascendancy.  Start- 
ing out  with  simple  grammar  the  subject  has  been  developed  so 
as  to  include  composition,  rhetoric,  and  a  broad  range  of  study 
in  the  best  of  both  English  and  American  literatures.  Latin  and 
Greek  still  have  a  place  in  college  entrance  requirements,  but 
they  are  seldom  required  unless  it  be  in  combination  with  modem 
languages.  The  present  tendency  is  to  consider  all  languages 
under  one  general  group;  the  privilege  is  then  given  to  the  stu- 
dent to  make  suitable  electives  in  harmony  with  the  specific  pur- 
pose of  the  college  course. 

Mathematics  is  the  only  entrance  subject  that  in  the  long  run 
of  years  has  maintained  its  place.  Next  to  English  it  appears 
most  frequently  on  the  list  of  prescribed  subjects. 

Science  and  history  are  well  established,  although  they  are 
considered  as  electives  by  nearly  one-half  of  the  institutions  of 
our  list. 


20  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

The  most  recent  development  is  the  growing  recx)gnition  of 
a  large  group  of  vocational  subjects  which  command  within  cer- 
tain limits  equal  credit  with  the  literary  subjects. 

(b)  College  Graduation  Requirements 

Colonial  Period 

The  establishment  of  Harvard  College  on  the  banks  of  the 
Charles  in  1636  is  the  outstanding  event  in  the  history  of  higher 
education  in  the  United  States.  As  the  mother  of  American  col- 
leges and  universities,  Harvard  College  has  been  inseparably 
connected  with  the  developments  of  collegiate  education  that 
have  taken  place  during  the  past  three  centuries.  Compared  with 
the  present  standards  of  graduation  the  following  requirements, 
taken  from  the  laws  of  Dunster  (1642),  seem  very  simple  indeed: 

Every  scholar  that  on  proof  is  found  able  to  translate  the  original  of 
the  Old  and  New  Testament  into  the  Latin  tongue,  and  to  resolve  them 
logically,  and  shall  be  imbued  with  the  beginnings  of  natural  and  moral 
philosophy,  withal  being  of  honest  life  and  conversation,  and  at  any 
public  act  hath  the  approbation  of  the  overseers  and  master  of  the  college, 
may  be  invested  with  his  first  degree;  but  no  one  will  expect  this  degree 
unless  he  shall  have  passed  four  years  in  college  and  has  maintained  therein 
a  blameless  life  and  has  sedulously  observed  all  public   exercises. 

The  first  year  shall  teach  rhetoric,  second  and  third  year  dialectics,  and 
the  fourth  year  shall  add  philosophy  *  *  *  In  this  course  of  four 
years  each  one  shall  dispute  twice  in  his  public  schools  and  shall  respond 
twice  in  his  own  class;  which  if  he  performs,  and  is  found  worthy  after 
the  regular  examination,  he  shall  become  an  A.B. 

WiUiam  and  Mary  College  was  founded  in  1693,  at  Williams- 
burg, Va.,  by  James  Blair,  who  modeled  the  curriculum  some- 
what on  the  plan  of  the  University  of  Edinburgh.  The  principal 
subjects  of  study  were  the  classics,  Hebrew,  philosophy,  arith- 
metic, geography,  and  anatomy.  Yale  was  established  at  New 
Haven,  Conn.,  in  1701.  The  subjects  prescribed  for  the  A.  B. 
degree  at  that  institution  were  the  classics  including  Tully  and 
Vergil,  also  logic,  physics,  Greek,  New  Testament,  and  Hebrew. 
Disputations  were  held  two  or  three  times  a  week. 

Princeton  College  received  its  charter  in  1745  and  closely  fol- 
lowed the  programs  of  Harvard  and  Yale.  The  University  of 
Pennsylvania  was  a  direct  offshoot  from  the  College,  Academy, 
and  Charitable  School  of  Philadelphia.  Franklin  was  the  father 
of  this  school  and  he  bore  testimony  in  his  early  day  to  the  use- 
lessness  of  Latin  and  Greek  in  the  educational  requirements  of 
the  schools.  To  him  foreign  languages  were  but  the  tools  of 
knowledge,  and  if  the  vernacular  gave  all  necessary  information, 
other  tools  were  needless.     The  course  of  study  at  the  Pnila- 


LATIN  AND  GREEK  21 

delphia  school  was  unusually  strong  in  science,  and  contrary  to 
the  desires  of  the  founder,  it  was  equally  strong  in  the  classics. 

Columbia  University,  founded  as  King's  College  in  1754,  en- 
larged the  college  curriculum  and  laid  the  foundation  for  a  very 
broad  course  of  study.  The  following  summary  of  college  re- 
quirements announced  by  the  president  in  the  year  1754  is  of  spe- 
cial interest: 

The  college  aims  to  instruct  and  perfect — 

In  the  learned  languages; 

In  the   art   of  reasoning  correctly; 

In  writing   correctly    and    speaking    eloquently; 

In  the  arts  of  numbering  and  measuring; 

In  surveying   and  navigation; 

In  geography  and  history; 

In  husbandry,    commerce,    and    government; 

In  knowledge  of  all  nature  in  the  heavens  above  us  and  in  the  air, 
water,  and  earth  around  us  and  the  various  kinds  of  meteors,  stones, 
mines,   and   minerals,  plants,   and   animals; 

In  everything  useful  for  the  comfort,  the  convenience,  and  elegance 
of  life  in  the  chief  manufactures.  , 

To  lead  them  [pupils]  from  the  study  of  nature  to  the  knowledge  of 
themselves  and  of  the  God  of  nature,  and  their  duty  to  Him,  themselves, 
and  one   another; 

And  everything  that  can  contribute  to  their  true  happiness,  both  here 
and  hereafter. 

The  Revolutionary  Period,  and  French  Influences 
(1780  to  1840) 

About  the  time  of  the  Revolutionary  War  when  the  influences 
which  gave  birth  to  the  Nation  were  at  their  height  in  this  coun- 
try, several  important  State-supported  colleges  were  founded. 
These  reflected  to  a  considerable  extent  the  French  practices  of 
organization,  especially  in  the  States  of  New  York,  Georgia, 
Michigan,  Wisconsin,  Louisiana,  California,  and  Maryland. 

The  colleges  were,  in  most  instances,  the  centers  of  the  several 
State  systems  of  education.  To  a  certain  extent  the  elective  sys- 
tem, as  we  now  understand  it,  was  attributed  to  French  in- 
fluences. Jefferson  in  reorganizing  education  in  Virginia  showed 
'  the  result  of  his  contact  with  the  newer  ideas  which  have  made 
a  lasting  impression  on  higher  education  in  this  country.  The 
curriculum  of  the  University  of  Virginia,  as  adopted  in  1824,  is, 
doubtless,  next  to  the  founding  of  Harvard  College,  the  most 
significant  event  in  the  history  of  American  college  education. 

George  Ticknor,  who  was  called  to  the  chair  of  languages  at 
Harvard  College  in  1817,  urged  radical  changes  in  the  administra- 
tion of  the  curriculum  on  accepting  his  post,  and  he  sponsored 
not  only  the  elective  system  but  urged  the  organization  of  de- 
partments with  separate  heads. 

About  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century  President  Way- 


22  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

land,  of  Brown  University,  was  successful  in  broadening  the 
scope  of  the  college  curriculum.  He  stood  also  for  a  better 
quality  of  instruction.  Meanwhile  the  sciences,  chemistry  in 
particular,  were  finding  a  permanent  place  in  college  require- 
ments, having  appeared  first  at  Yale  and  Harvard  shortly  after 
the  year  1800.  Mathematics  was  being  developed  under  the  in- 
fluence of  the  great  French  mathematicians.  Political  economy 
was  first  taught  at  Harvard  in  1820,  and  Yale,  Columbia,  Dart- 
mouth, Princeton,  and  WiUiams  all  added  this  subject  within  15 
years.  The  first  chair  of  history  was  founded  by  William  and 
Mary  in  1822  and  Harvard  followed  suit  in  1839. 

While  French  had  been  a  side  issue  in  some  of  the  colleges, 
Bowdoin  established  a  chair  of  modern  languages,  under  H.  W. 
Longfellow,  in  1825.  In  the  same  year  German  was  added  to 
the  course  at  Harvard.  It  was  also  taught  at  the  University  of 
Virginia. 

The  Civil  War 

The  Civil  War  gave  a  setback  to  several  of  the  old  State  in- 
stitutions which  had  arisen  under  the  national  movement.  But 
at  the  same  time  a  very  important  movement  in  higher  education 
was  launched  by  Senator  Morrill,  of  Vermont,  who  was  father 
of  the  principal  enabling  acts  of  the  land-grant  colleges.  These 
colleges  were  not  only  to  give  a  liberal  education  in  the  arts  and 
sciences,  but  were  especially  devoted  to  developing  agricultural 
and  engineering  education  of  a  high  order.  The  States  were  not 
slow  in  complying  with  the  conditions  of  the  Morrill  and  subse- 
quent acts,  so  to-day  we  find  68  land-grant  colleges  in  successful 
operation  all  over  the  United  States. 

German  Influence 

The  influence  of  the  German  universities  on  a  small  group  of 
prominent  American  thinkers  and  educators  before  the  outbreak 
of  the  Civil  War  led  to  the  further  development  of  the  principle 
of  freedom  of  election  of  college  studies.  President  Eliot,  of 
Harvard,  in  the  year  1869,  led  out  in  this  movement  which  has 
with  little  resistance  spread  over  the  United  States.  Some  reac- 
tion to  extreme  views  on  this  question  has  been  manifest,  the 
present  tendency  being  to  safeguard  the  student's  work  by  a  more 
restricted  plan  of  election  which  will  insure  the  most  profitable 
combination  of  studies. 


LATIN   AND   GREEK  23 


BRIEF  EXCERPTS 

The  conflict  of  science  and  Classics  is  a  dead  issue.  Science 
has  won  an  overwhelming  victory,  Paul  Shorey,  Atlantic 
Monthly  120  :gy  July  igiy. 

If  there  be  one  thing  more  certain  than  another,  it  is  that 
Latin  and  Greek  no  longer  hold  the  place  as  educational  agen- 
cies which  they  occupied  one  hundred  or,  indeed,  even  fifty  years 
ago.  Sidney  G.  Ashmore,  Professor  of  Latin,  Union  College, 
The  Classics  and  Modern  Training,  p.  i. 

Fifty  per  cent  of  the  crime  today  can  be  traced  to  the  public 
school  system  and  the  manner  in  which  it  turns  the  children  out 
into  the  world,  without  a  vocation  and  without  the  necessary 
training  to  fit  them  for  the  work  that  they  are  to  do.  Mayor 
Darius  A.  Brown,  of  Kansas  City,  Buffalo  Courier  Sept.  11,  ig20. 

The  classics  a  few  generations  ago,  held  indisputably  the 
commanding  position  among  all  other  subjects  of  the  school  and 
college  curriculum.  Mathematics  and  philosophy  shared  with 
the  ancient  tongues  almost  the  entire  time  of  the  student.  The 
recent  development,  however,  of  the  natural  and  physical  sci- 
ences, the  rise  of  good  modern  literature  and  the  commercial 
spirit  of  the  age  have  retired  Greek  and  Latin  to  a  place  co- 
ordinate with  or  subordinate  to  the  modern  subjects,  and  have 
even  forced  them  to  defend  their  right  to  remain.  No  longer  is 
there  any  necessity  for  one  or  two  studies  to  sway  the  curricu- 
lum, and  even  the  friends  of  the  ancient  languages  do  not  desire 
to  have  them  restored  to  their  former  dominion.  Edward  P. 
Davis,  Education  32:52  Sept.  igii. 

By  the  head  of  the  Department  of  Latin  in  Adelbert  College 
is  given  this  statement,  "All  interest  in  matters  classical  and  all 
belief  in  their  value  have  ceased  to  exist  in  the  community  and 
the  same  condition  obtains  in  college.  About  twenty  per  cent 
of  the  freshmen  take  Latin  during  their  first  year,  not  because 
they  wish  to  do  so,  but  because  it  seems  easier  than  anything  else 
under  the  present  arrangements.  Two  or  three  or  four  students 
continue    a   year    longer, — ^practically    nobody    after    sophomore 


24  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

year.  There  is  therefore  no  incentive  for  advanced  work  in  this 
institution  in  classics,  for  Greek  is  worse  off  than  Latin,  and  it  is 
of  course  foolish  for  anyone  to  study  Latin  without  Greek  and 
quite  impossible  to  carry  on  the  work  in  the  former  without  the 
latter."  Annual  Report  of  the  President  of  Adelbert  College  and 
Western  Reserve  University ,  Western  Reserve  Bulletin  18:48, 
Sept.  1915. 


AFFIRMATIVE  DISCUSSION 

THE  CASE  FOR  THE  CLASSICS  ^ 

No  subject  is  too  stale  for  a  "rattling  speech,"  and  the  mere 
praise  of  the  classics  and  the  exposure  of  the  adversary  still  sup- 
ply good  matter  of  rhetoric.^  But  this  paper  is  to  be  printed, 
and  I  hope  with  the  aid  of  footnotes  to  make  it  a  sufficient, 
though  of  course  not  exhaustive,  historical  resume  and  a  reper- 
tory of  temperate  arguments  adapted  to  present  conditions.^  To 
this  end  I  am  prepared  to  sacrifice  not  only  its  temporary  effect 
on  an  audience  but  any  ambition  I  might  feel  to  attain  the  sym- 
metry and  classicism  of  form  which  befit  a  classicist  speaking  in 
his  own  cause  and  which  are  so  admirably  illustrated  in  the  apol- 
ogies for  classical  studies  of  Mill  and  Jebb  and  Arnold."* 

The  situation  has  improved  since  I  had  the  honor  of  speak- 
ing here  fifteen  or  sixteen  years  ago,  and  many  topics  which  I 
dwelt  on  then  may  be  lightly  enumerated  today.  The  wearisome 
controversy  has  educated  the  participants  on  both  sides.^  Both 
are  more  careful  in  their  dialectic  and  more  cautious   in  the 

*  Professor  Paul   Shorey.     School   Review.      18:585-617.      Nov.    1910. 

*  Cf.  Professor  Forman's  Humble  Apology  for'  Greek,  Cornell  Univer- 
sity,  1904,  printed  privately. 

*  Cf.  infra,  p.  600-1.  Even  in  1868  Professor  Gildersleeve  had  to  make 
the  same  point  (Essays  and  Studies,  5;  **Dr.  Bigelow  is  fighting  the 
shadows  of  the  past,"  etc. — Ibid.,  10). 

*  Mill,  "Inaugural  Address,"  Dissertations  and  Discussions,  IV,  332  S.; 
Jebb,  Essays  and  Addresses,  506  ff.;  Humanism  in  Education.  545  ff. ; 
Present  Tendencies  in  Classical  Studies,  560  ff.,  609  ff.,  636  ff;  Arnold, 
"Literature  and  Science,"  Discourses  in  America,  172  ff.  To  these  might 
be  added  Lowell's  "Harvard  Anniversary  Address,"  Prose  Works,  VI,  139, 
160,  165:  "Oblivion  looks  in  the  face  of  the  Grecian  Muse  only  to  for- 
get her  errand,"  166,  174;  and  Latest  Lit.  Essays,  139,  the  speech  in  which 
the  greatest  professor  of  modern  languages  told  the  Modern  Language 
Association:  "I  hold  this  evening  a  brief  for  the  modern  languages  and 
am  bound  to  put  the  case  in  as  fair  a  light  as  I  conscientiously  can."  See 
the  fine  chapter  on  "Reading*'  in  Thoreau's  WaJden.  And  for  further 
bibliography  of  books  and  papers  referred  to  in  this  address  cf.  infra, 
p.   591,   587,    599. 

*  Huxley  (Science  and  Education,  83)  stretched  "nature"  to  include 
"men  and  their  ways,"  and  Arnold  with  more  justice  made  "letters"  in- 
clude  Copernicus  and  Darwin   (their   results,   not  their  processes). 


26  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

abuse  of  exaggeration  and  irrelevancy.^  Our  opponents  have 
grown  very  shy  of  the  kind  of  logic  which  delivered  them  into 
our  hands,  though  they  still  grotesquely  misconceive  the  nature 
and  aims  of  our  teaching.^  But  only  a  few  incorrigibles  still 
harp  on  the  false  antithesis  of  words  and  things.^  The  recollec- 
tion of  Lowell's  eloquent  protest  (VI,  174)  if  nothing  else  would 
make  them  eschew  the  precious  argument  of  Herbert  Spencer 
and  Lowe  that  Greece  was  such  a  little  country,  "no  bigger  than 
an  English  county."  Some  of  them  are  beginning  to  apprehend 
the  distinction  between  education  and  instruction,  formation  and 
information.*  And  if  any  of  .them  still  believe  that  the  intrinsic 
excellence  of  classical  literautre  is  a  superstition  of  pedants  they 
rarely  venture  to  say  so  in  public  in  the  fearless  old  fashion  of 
the  Popular  Science  Monthly.^  We  have  won  a  victory  at  the 
bar  of  educated  opinion  in  which  we  may  feel  some  complacency, 
though  we  must  beware  of  overestimating  its  practical  signifi- 
cance. The  man  in  the  street  has  not  changed  his  opinion  of 
dead  languages,  and  the  great  drift  of  American  education  and 
life  toward  absorption  in  the  fascinating  spectacle  of  the  present 
has  not  been,  perhaps  cannot  be,  checked.  A  stream  of  tendency 
cannot  be   dammed  by  argument.     As   Professor   James    says: 

*  Huxley,  op.  cit.,  163;  Jebb,  op.  cit.,  537.  No  rational  advocate  would 
now  recommend  either  Latin  or  botany  on  the  ground  that  it  exercises 
the  memory.     See  Gildersleeve,   op.  cit.,  28. 

'  Cf.  President  David  Starr  Jordan,  Pop.  Sci.  Mo.,  73  (1908),  p.  28: 
"Once  the  student  cuts  entirely  loose  from  real  objects  and  spends  his 
days  among  diacritical  marks,  irregular  conjugations,  and  distinctions 
without  difference  his  orientation  is  lost."  So  Tyndall  once  demanded 
"a  culture  which  shall  embrace  something  more  than  declensions  and  con- 
jugations." Wliat  would  President  Jordan  think  of  a  classicist  who  char- 
acterized the  study  of  science  as  cutting  loose  from  human  interests  and 
counting  fish-scales?  See  Zielinski's  rebuke  of  Father  Petroff,  p.  200-1; 
Lowe,  "Speech  at  Edinburgh,"  November  i,  1867:  "We  find  a  statement 
in  Thucydides  or  Cornelius  Nepos  who  wrote  500  years  after  and  we 
never  are  instructed  that  the  statement  of  the  latter  is  not  quite  as  good 
as  the  former.  .  .  .  The  study  of  the  dead  languages  precludes  the 
inquiring  habit  of  mind  which  measures  probabilities"  [jtc].  Cf.  infra,  p. 
594-97. 

•Lowe  at  Edinburgh,  November,  1867;  Spencer,  passim;  Jordan,  Pop. 
Sci.  Mo.,  73  (1908),  p.  29;  cf.  Youmans,  5,  "The  relation  between  words. 
.  .  .  and  ideas  ...  is  accidental  and  arbitrary."  Cf.  contra 
Masson   apud   Taylor,   p   306;   Mill,   347-8. 

*  Gildersleeve,  Essays  and  Studies,  13:  Zielinski,  28;  Brunetiere,  Ques- 
tions  Actuelles,    51    ff.,    62,    74-75,   404-S-  ,.      .,^  1,   j    r      u 

» 23,  701:  "The  Dead  Language  Superstition,"  a  diatribe  called  forth 
by  Mill's  "Inaugural."  See  in  like  strain  Mach,  Open  Court,  November 
22,  1894;  Bierbower,  "Passing  of  the  Linguist,"  N.  E.  Magazine,  n.s.  36, 
346  ff. 


LATIN   AND   GREEK  27 

"Round  your  obstacle  flows  the  water  and  gets  there  all  the 
same."^  The  majority  still  believe  that  modern  civilization  can 
find  not  only  entertainment  but  also  all  the  instruction  and  all 
the  culture  which  it  requires  in  the  contemplation  of  moving 
pictures  of  itself  whether  in  the  five-cent  theater  or  the  ten-cent 
magazine  or  the  one-cent  newspaper.  But  among  the  thoughtful 
there  is  a  reaction  in  our  favor.  They  may  not  accept  our  esti- 
mates of  the  transcendental  worth  of  the  classic  literatures  or 
the  unique  discipline  of  classical  studies.  But  they  have  lost 
.  forever  the  illusion  that  the  mere  suppression  of  Greek  and 
Latin  will  bring  in  the  educational  millennium.^  They  are  ob 
serving  with  mixed  feelings  a  Greekless  generation  of  gradu- 
ates and  wondering  what  a  Latinless  generation  will  be  like.  They 
admit  with  some  natural  reserves  the  breakdown  of  the  elective 
system.3  They  recognize  that  a  real  education  must  be  based  on 
a  serious,  consecutive,  progressive  study  of  something  definite, 
teachable,  and  hard.*  And  while  they  may  not  agree  with  us 
that  no  good  substitutes  for  Greek  and  Latin  and  the  exact  sci- 
ences can  be  found,  they  are  not  quite  so  certain  as  they  were 
that  sociology,  household  administration,  modern  English  fiction, 
short  stories  as  a  mode  of  thinking,  and  modern  French  and 
German  comedies  are  "equally  as  good."  Thirty  or  fifty  years 
ago  they  could  contrast  with  our  ideal  the  actual  results  of  that 
classical  training  for  which  we  claimed  so  much.^  It  is  now  our 
turn  to  challenge  the  results  of  the  new  system.^ 

Addressing  myself  to  a  generation  thus   chastened  in  spirit 

*  For  an  effective  answer  to  this  fatalistic  vox  populi  vox  Dei  argu- 
ment, see  Zielinski,  Our  Debt  to  Antiquity  (Eng.  trans.,  E.  P.  Dutton), 
3-8;  cf.  Lowell,  "Harvard  Anniversary  Address,"  Works,  VI,  162:  "I 
have  seen  several  spirits  of  the  age  in  my  time,"  etc.  Paulsen  (II,  370) 
says  that  in  1770  Kant  would  never  have  foreseen  that  in  1820  Greek 
would  lead  science  in  the  schools.  Yet  he  himself  ventures  the  pre- 
diction that  a  third  renaissance  of  classics  will  never  come   (p.   634-35). 

'"Harking  Back  to  the  Classics,"  Atlantic  Mo.,  loi  (1908),  482;  L.  R. 
Briggs,  "Some  Old-Fashioned  Doubts  about  New-fashioned  Education," 
Atlantic  Mo.,  86,  463;  Williams,  School  Review  (1909),  383-84.  Gayley, 
Idols  of  Education;  Barrett  Wendell,  The  Mystery  of  Education;  see 
BrunettSre,   op.   cit.,   399-400. 

•Already  Lowell,  op.  cit.,  VI.  161:  cf.  Shorey,  "Discipline  in  Edu- 
cation." Bookman,  March,  1906,  See  the  entire  recent  literature  of  des- 
satisfaction  with  the  colleges. 

*  Huxley,  op.  cit.,  414;  cf  already  the  admirable  words  of  De  Mor- 
gan  in  Youmans,   The  Culture  Demanded  by  Modern  Life,  442. 

"  See  Contetnp.    Review  xxxv,  833. 

*  Paulsen  in  Educat.  Review,  xxxiii.  39,  says  (of  classics)  that  we 
must  consider  what  the  average  graduate  gets,  not  ideals.  Well,  what 
has  the  average  graduate  been  getting  from  the  "bargain-counter,  sample 
room,  d  la  carte"  system  of  the  past  two  decades? 


28  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

and  exercised  in  the  dialectics  of  educational  controversy,  I  need 
not  do  more  than  enumerate  some  of  the  hoary  fallacies  and 
irrelevancies  which  it  was  once  necessary  to  refute  in  detail.  I 
may  take  it  for  granted  that  we  must  compare  either  ideals  with 
ideals  or  actualities  with  actualities;  that  from  the  standpoint  of 
the  ideal  all  subjects  are  badly  taught,  imperfectly  learned,  and 
quickly  forgotten  ;i  that  the  classics  are  on  the  whole  among  the 
better-taught  subjects,^  and  that  middle-aged  business  men  who 
complain  that  they  cannot  read  Greek  and  Latin  for  pleasure 
would  not  distinguish  themselves  if  examined  on  mediaeval  his- 
tory, conic  sections,  old  French,  organic  chemistry,  or  whatever 
else  they  happened  to  elect  in  college.  As  George  Eliot  says,  "the 
depth  of  middle-aged  gentlemen's  ignorance  will  never  be  known 
for  want  of  public  examinations  in  this  branch."  It  is  known  in 
the  case  of  the  classics  only  because  they  regret  that  they  have 
lost  them  and  so  betray  themselves. 

Similarly  w^e  may  assume  a  general  recognition  of  the  distinc- 
tion between  the  higher  and  the  lower  sense  of  "practical,"^ 
of  the  fact  that  the  most  practical  of  studies  are  useful  only  to 
those  who  are  to  use  them,*  and  of  the  repeated  testimony  of 
business  and  technical  men  that  the  actual  knowledge  gained  in 
preparatory  college  courses  in  their  subjects  is  of  little  value.^ 

Again  everybody  except  President  Stanley  Hall  is  now  aware 

*  Cf.  Barrett  Wendell,  The  Mystery  of  Education,  143.  On  the  at- 
tempt to  limit  education  to  what  all  "educated"  men  remember  cf.  Zie- 
linski,   p.   27. 

2  Cf.  Andover  Review,  y.  No.  2  (1884),  83;  Huxley,  op.  cit.,  153; 
Professor  Alexander  Smith,  in  Science,  XXX,  457-66:  "Every  conclusion 
is  tested  and  every  element  in  problem-solving  by  the  scientific  method 
is  covered.     .     .  The  method  is  simple,  yet  of  unquestionable  efficiency. 

A  method  so  simple  and  certain  has  not  yet  been  devised  for  history, 
literature,   political  economy,   or  chemistry." 

*  Cf.  Cambridge  Essays  (1855),  291;  W.  F.  Allen,  Memorial  Volume, 
129,  "Practical  Education";  Forman,  op.  cit.,  7-9;  Clapp,  Overland, 
XXVIII,  94. 

*  Huxley,  Science  and  Ed.,  316-21,  rejects  histology,  comparative  anat- 
omy, and  materia  medica  as  of  no  practical  use  to  the  physician.  Cf. 
Brunetiere,  op.  cit.,  401;  Jacob  Bigelow,  "Remarks  on  Classical  and  Utili- 
tarian Studies,"   1867,  with  the  answer  in  No.  Am.  Rev.,  CIV,  610. 

•^  Loeb,  School  Rev.  (1909),  373,  "But  thirteen  years*  experience  in 
very  active  affairs  taught  me  that  the  time  spent  at  Harvard  studying 
history  of  finance.  .  .  .  might  as  well  have  been  devoted  to  the  classics 
for  all  the  practical  value  I  got."  "Ou  sont  aujourd'hui  la  physique,  la 
chimie,  la  physiologic  d'il  y  a  trente  ans  seulement,  et  qu'  en  connaissons- 
nous  pour  les  avoir  6tudiees  au  college,  et  depuis  oubliees?" — Brunetiere, 
op,  cit.,  94. 


LATIN   AND   GREEK  29 

that  the  phrase  "dead  language"  is  not  an  argument  but  a  ques- 
tion-begging epithet  or  a  foolish,  outworn,  metaphor.^ 

Lastly,  the  right  use  and  limits  of  translations  are  no  longer 
likely  to  be  misunderstood.  Few  will  now  be  misled  either  by 
Labouchere's  statement  that  Bohn's  translations  had  shown  up 
the  classics,  or  Emerson's  saying  that  he  would  as  soon  swim 
when  there  was  a  bridge  as  resort  to  the  original  in  place  of  a 
translation;  or  Professor  Moulton's  argument  that  translations 
are  as  good  as  the  originals  for  the  teacher  of  "general"  liter- 
ature. And  though  we  sometimes  meet  the  fallacy  that  posed 
Gibbon's  aunt,  the  argument  that  the  student's  own  version  is 
inferior  to  the  printed  translations  of  great  scholars  which  he 
might  use  instead,  it  is  merely  as  Gibbon  says  "a  silly  sophism 
which  could  not  easily  be  confuted  by  a  person  ignorant  of  any 
language  but  her  own."  There  is  no  opposition  between  the  use 
of  translations  and  the  study  of  the  original.  On  the  contrary 
even  a  little  acquaintance  with  the  original  adds  immensely  to 
their  usefulness.  They  are  tools  which  are  best  employed  by 
those  who  have  some  insight  into  the  method  of  their  construc- 
tion.2  For  some  purposes  they, may  be  almost  as  good  as  the 
originals.  But  among  the  purposes  for  which  they  are  not  90 
good  are  classroom  discipline,  the  development  of  the  critical 
intelligence  and  the  habit  of  exactness,  and  the  maintenance  of 
high  standards  of  national  taste  and  culture  in  the  educated 
classes.^ 

*  Cf.  Fouill6e,  125,  on  Raoul  Frary's  "Culture  of  Dead  Wood."  "A 
dead  language  is  the  dead  sea  of  thought" — Pop  Sci.  Mo.,  xvii,  148.  Cf. 
in  Butler's  Erewhon,  the  satire  on  "Colleges  of  Unreason  given  over  to 
the  study  of  the  Hypothetical  Language";  the  elaboration  of  the  same  old 
jest  in  another  form  by  Professor  Scott,  Ed.,  XVI,  360,  and  Spencer*s 
constant   recourse   to  the   argument. 

For  the  retort  crushing  on  the  "dead  languages"  argument,  cf.  the 
eloquent  words  of  D'Arcy  W.  Thompson  in  Day  Dreams  of  a  Schoolmas- 
ter; Lowell,  op.  cit.,  VI,  165;  "If  their  language  is  dead,  yet  the  literature 
it  enshrines  is  rammed  with  life  as  perhaps  no  other  ....  ever  was 
or  will  be." — Bryce,  School  Rev.  (1909),  369;  Postgate's  Liverpool  Inau- 
gural Lecture  on  "Dead  Language  and  Dead  Languages,"  i-io;  ibid.,  12; 
85  per  cent  of  "Ido"  is  intelligible  to  an  Englishman  who  knows — Latin. 
For  the  superior  educational  value  of  a  synthetic,  classic,  or  a  "dead" 
language,  cf.  Jebb,  op.  cit.,  621;  Gildersleeve,  op.  cit.,  27-28;  Mill,  op.  cit., 
352-53:   ZicHnski,   op.   cit.,   33   ff, ;   Laurie,    10;   infra,   p.    508. 

'Cf.  President  Mackenzie,  School  Rev.  (1908),  378-80;  Zielinski,  op. 
cit.,   112. 

•  Cf.  Gildersleeve,  op.  cit.,  20,  A.  J.  P.,  XXX,  353;  Mill,  op.  cit.,  350; 
Clapp,  op.  cit.,  100;  Zielinski,  op.  cit.,  85,  87;  T.  Herbert  Warren,  Essays 
on  Poets  and  Poetry,  III;  Wilamowitz,  Introduction  to  *'Hippolytus" i  Was 
ist  Uehersetzenf ;  Paul  Cauer,  Kunst  des  Uebersetsens,  4th  ed.,  1909:  Diels, 
Herakleitos:  "Uebersetzen  ist  Spiel  oder,  wenn  man  will,  Spielerei." 


30  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

In  addition  to  all  this  controversial  and  negative  work,  we 
may  take  for  granted  the  conventional  positive  and  construc- 
tive arguments  for  classical  studies  elaborated  by  a  long  line  of 
able  apologists,  except  so  far  as  we  have  occasion  to  summarize 
or  refer  to  them  in  the  course  of  this  review.^ 

These  arguments  are  not  exclusive  but  cumulative.  The  case 
of  the  classics  does  not  rest  on  any  one  of  them  and  is  not  im- 
paired by  the  exaggerated  importance  that  mistaken  zeal  may 
attribute  to  any  one.  Those  who  still  harp  on  the  superiority  of 
the  classics  as  discipline^  do  not  therefore  "tacitly  acknowledge 
themselves  beaten  on  the  point  of  their  intrinsic  value"^  and 
those  who  prefer  to  emphasize  the  "necessity  of  the  ancient 
classics"  for  the  understanding  of  modern  life  and  letters*  may 
still  believe  that  high-school  Latin  is  the  best  instrument  of  disci- 
pline available  in  secondary  education.^ 

The  March  number  of  the  Classical  Journal  tabulates  the 
aims  of  classical  study  as  stated  by  teachers  in  response  to  a 
questionnaire.  Thirty  teachers  aim  at  mental  training,  29  at 
literary  appreciation,  26  at  power  of  expression,  26  at  the  rela- 
tion of  the  ancients  to  us,  26  at  ability  to  read,  15  at  general 
linguistic  training,  8  at  grammar,  6  at  acquaintance  with  Greek 
and  Latin  literature.  Obviously  there  is  nothing  incompatible  in 
these  aims.  It  is  a  question  of  emphasis,  the  needs  of  the  class, 
the  ability,  training,  and  tastes  of  the  teacher.  A  faddist  may 
ride  his  hobby  to  death,  whether  it  be  optatives,  or  lantern  slides, 

^See  supra,  p.  585,  n.  3;  infra,  p.  613-17.  For  some  earlier  apologies 
and  discussions  see  Sandys,  History  of  Classical  Scholarship,  II,  18,  51, 
71,  125,  130,  151,  171,  181,  209,  256;  also  the  writers  quoted  in  Taylor, 
Classical  Study:  Its  Value  Illustrated  (Andover,  1870).  Cf.  further  W. 
G.  C.  in  Cambridge  Essays  (1855),  282;  Essays  on  a  Liberal  Education 
(1867);  Arnold  in  Higher  Schools  in  Germany,  and  A  French  Eton;  Field, 
Lyttleton,  and  Rendall  in  Essays  on  Education  by  members  of  the  XIII 
(London,  1891);  Goodwin,  Educat.  Rev.,  IX,  335;  Postgate,  "Are  the  Clas- 
sics to  Go?"  Fortnightly,  LXXVIII,  866  ff.;  West,  "Must  the  Classics 
Go?"  N.  A.  Rev.,  CXXXVIII,  151;  Kelsey;  "Position  of  Latin  and 
Greek  in  American  Education,"  Educat.  Rev.,  XXXIII,  162;  Clapp,  Over- 
land, XXVIII,  93  ff.;  T.  Rice  Holmes,  "The  Crusade  Against  the  Classics," 
National  Rev.,  XLII,  97  ff.;  Freeman  in  Macmillan,  LXIII,  321  ff . ;  An- 
drew Lang  in  Living  Age,  CCXLV,  765  ff. ;  J.  C.  Collins,  Fortnightly, 
LXXXIII,  260  ff.;  T.  E.  Page,  Educat.  Rev.,  XXXIV,  144;  Manatt,  N.  Y. 
Evening  Post,  August  18,  1906;  Anatole  France,  "Pour  le  Latin,"  Vie  lit- 
tdraire,  I,  281;  Brunetiere,  "La  question  du  Latin,"  Revue  des  deux 
tnondes,   Dec.    15,    1885. 

2  E.g.,  Professor  Sidney  G.  Ashmore,  The  Classics  and  Modern  Train- 
ing, chap.  i.    See  supra,  588,  n.   11-12. 

8  Gildersleeve,   op.   cit.,    15. 

*  Gildersleeve,   South.  Quart.,  XXVI,    14S. 

•  Cf.  Bennett  and  Bristol,  The  Teaching  of  Latin  and  Greek,  chap,  i, 
and  Bristol  in   Educ.   Rev.,   XXXVII,   243-Si. 


LATIN  AND   GREEK  31 

or  parallel  passages  from  the  poets.  But  in  return,  the  good 
teacher  will  almost  in  the  same  breath  translate  a  great  poetic 
sentence,  bring  out  its  relations  to  the  whole  of  which  it  is  a 
part,  make  its  musical  rhythm  felt  by  appropriate  declamation, 
explain  a  historical  or  an  antiquarian  allusion,  call  attention  to  a 
dialectic  form,  put  a  question  about  a  peculiar  use  of  the  optative, 
compare  the  imagery  with  similar  figures  of  speech  in  ancient 
and  modern  poetry,  and  use  the  whole  as  a  text  for  a  little  dis- 
course on  the  difference  between  the  classical  and  the  modern  or 
romantic  spirit ;  so  that  you  shall  not  know  whether  he  is  teach- 
ing science  or  art,  language  or  literature,  grammar,  rhetoric, 
psychology,  or  sociology,  because  he  is  really  teaching  the  ele- 
ments and  indispensable  prerequisites  of  all. 

Similarly  of  the  diverse  considerations  urged  by  former 
apologists  and  the  contributors  to  these  symposia.  The  case  of 
the  classics  rests  on  no  one  taken  singly  but  on  their  conjoint 
force,  and  it  is  not  really  weakened  by  the  disproportionate  stress 
sometimes  laid  on  the  weaker  arguments.  The  illumination  or 
scientific  terminology,  for  example,  is  a  minor  and  secondary 
utility  of  a  little  knowledge  of  Greek  and  Latin  on  which  the 
biologist  or  physician  is  especially  apt,  perhaps  over  much,  to  in- 
sist. That  is  his  contribution.  He  does  not  mean  to  rest  the 
case  on  that.  He  is  not  answered  by  the  argument  that  "ten  or 
twelve  years"  of  study  is  too  big  a  price  to  pay  for  this  result 
and  that  terminology  can  be  learned  from  glossaries.  For  a  very 
'light  knowledge  of  the  languages  makes  an  immense  difference 
in  the  intelligence  with  which  the  dictionary  or  the  glossary  of 
scientific  terms  is  consulted  and  the  vividness  with  which  its 
statements  are  realized.  One  or  two  years  will  yield  a  good  deal 
of  that  particular  utility,  and  the  question  for  the  teacher  of  sci- 
ence or  medicine  is  whether  any  other  non-pro fessiomul  college 
study  is  likely  to  be  more  "useful"  to  his  students.^  So  in  argu- 
ing that  the  classics  give  the  engineer  a  power  of  expression 
which  he  requires  for  use  as  well  as  for  ornament,  Professor 
Sadler^  is  not  committing  himself  or  us  to  the  proposition  that 
none  but  classicists  write  well  and  all  classicists  do.  He  simply 
means  what  all  experience  proves,  that  the  study  of  the  classics 
is  on  the  whole  an  excellent  training  in    expression,^   perhaps 

*  See  Dr.  Vaughan  in  School  Rev.   (1906),  392. 
^School  Rev.   (1906),  402-5. 

•  A  writer  in  Educ.  Rev.,  XXXVIII,  88-90,  argues  that  the  differ- 
ence of  pronunciation  makes  Latin  useless  to  the  English  of  the  high- 
school  student. 


32  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

a  better  one  than  the  unpremeditated  effusions  of  "daily 
themes"^  and  that  discipline  in  the  power  of  exact  and  lucid 
expression  is  a  utility  for  the  engineer.^  Again,  Mr.  Kelsey 
would  be  the  last  to  rest  the  case  for  the  classics  on  the  fact  that 
the  wider  secondary  study  of  Greek  would  leave  the  door  of 
choice  for  the  profession  of  the  ministry  open  to  a  large  number 
of  desirable  candidates  who  now  find  too  late  that  they  lack  the 
indispensable  preparation.^  But  it  is  a  real  if  minor  considera- 
tion to  be  counted  in  the  sum. 

All  of  these  contributions  from  the  professions  take  for 
granted  the  general  discipline  and  cultural  values  of  the  classics, 
and  presuppose  the  fact  pointed  out  by  Mr.  Loeb  and  others, 
that  the  direct  business  and  technical  utilitarian  value  of  the  so- 
called  practical  college  courses  is  very  slight.  On  this  assump- 
tion, they  supplement  the  ideal  values  of  the  classics  by  showing 
that,  in  the  jargon  of  modern  pedagogy,  they  also  possess 
"adjustment  values"  for  other  professions  than  theology  and 
literature.' 

One  consideration,  however,  which  constantly  recurs  in  these 
discussions  is  fundamental.  It  is  the  training  which  the  classics 
give  in  the  art  of  interpretation.  Classicists  sometimes  claim  for 
and  scientific  men  concede  too  much  to  the  study  of  the  classics 
as  a  means  of  developing  the  powers  of  expression.*  They 
underestimate  its  value  as  a  discipline  of  the  intelligence.^  They 
appreciate  its  stimulus  to  emotion.  They  fail  to  apprehend  its 
subtler  effect  in  blending  and  harmonizing  the  two— suflusing 
thought  with  feeling,  informing  feeling  with  thought.  In  con- 
troversy Huxley  and  Tyndall  were  fond  of  pointing  out  that  the 

*  Cf.  Mr.  Barrett  Wendell's  sad  surmise  (The  Mystery  of  Education, 
175)  that  perhaps  the  reason  why  the  up-to-date  Harvard  student  doesn't 
write  like  Addison  is  that  Addison  "had  never  studied  English  composi- 
tion as  a  thing  apart."  But  Addison  had  studied  Latin  composition  and 
had  a  very  pretty  knack  of  turning  Latin  verses. 

»Cf.    Outlook,   XCIII    (1907),   87. 

^School  Rev.  (1908),  567-79. 

^  Huxley,  op.   cit.,    130. 

^  Bentley's  Dissertation  on  Phalaris,  the  type  and  model  of  philological 
method,  has  been  aptly  styled  "a  relentless  syllogism."  No  one  can  com- 
pare the  discourses  of  Renan  and  Pasteur  at  the  French  Academy  or  the 
Romanes  lectures  of  Jebb  (1899)  and  Professor  Lankester  (1904)  with- 
out feeling  that  the  superiority  of  the  trained  classical  philologian  is  not 
solely  or  mainly  "in  the  graces."  It  is  in  the  intellectual  qualities  of 
subtlety,  wit,  sanity,  breadth,  coherence,  and  closeness  of  cogent  dialectic 
that  his  advantage  is  most  conspicuous.  As  we  are  speaking  of  "dis- 
ciplinary values"  it  would  be  beside  the  mark  to  allege  what  Renan  and 
Jebb  would  be  the  first  to  admit,  that  Pasteur's  work  was  of  greater 
service   to   mankind   than  theirs. 


LATIN  AND   GREEK  33 

leaders  of  science  expressed  themselves  with  rather  more  vigor, 
point,  and  precision  than  the  ordinary  classicist.  And  their  own 
vivid  and  fluent  eloquence  drove  the  argument  home.  In  general, 
however,  men  of  science  are  only  too  ready  to  concede  with  the 
irony  which  apes  humility  that  their  training  has  not  supplied  the 
graces  and  literary  refinements  that  are  supposed  to  qualify  a 
man  to  shine  after  dinner  or  to  make  a  good  appearance  on  the 
platform.  But  the  gifts  of  eloquence  and  fluency  are  sparks  of. 
natural  endowment  which  science  perhaps  quite  as  often  as  phil- 
ology fans  into  flame.^  Scientific  men  may  make  haste  to  for- 
get their  Latin  as  Latin.  But  the  mere  classicist  observes  with 
admiring  despair  their  mastery  of  the  polysyllabic  Latinized  vo- 
cabulary of  English.  Where  he  says  "if  so"  they  say  "in  the  con- 
templated eventuality."  We  must  abate  our  claim  that  only  the 
classics  make  men  eloquent  and  emphatic  in  the  expression  of 
their  own  thoughts. 

But  it  is  impossible  to  claim  too  much  for  them  as  a  disci- 
pline in  the  all-important  art  of  interpreting  the  expressed 
thought  of  others.  There  is  no  other  exercise  available  for 
educational  purposes  that  can  compare  in  this  respect  with  the 
daily  graduated  critical  classroom  translation  and  interpretation 
of  classical  texts.^  The  instinctively  sane  judgment  of  intended 
meanings,  the  analytic  power  of  rational  interpretation — these, 
natural  gifts  being  equal,  are  the  distinctive  marks  of  the  student 
of  classics,  in  verying  degrees,  from  the  secondary-school  Latin- 
ist,  who  at  least  has  some  inkling  of  the  general  implicit  logic 
and  structure  of  language,  to  the  collegian  who  has  been  exer- 
cised in  the  equivocations  of  idiom  and  synonym,  and  the  finished 
master  who  can  weigh  all  the  nice  considerations  that  determine 
the  precise  shade  of  meaning  or  tone  of  feeling  in  a  speech  in 
Thucydides,  a  lyric  of  Aeschylus,  a  half -jesting,  half -serious 
argument  in  Plato.  Information,  knowledge,  culture,  originality, 
eloquence,  genius  may  exist  without  a  classical  training;  the 
critical  sense  and  a  sound  feeling  for  the  relativity  of  meaning 
rarely,  if  ever.  I  have  never  met  in  private  life  or  encountered 
in  literature  a  thinker  wholly  disdainful  of  the  discipline  of  the 
classics  who  did  not  betray  his  deficiency  in  this  respect.     I  say 

*  On  the  bad  style  of  classicists  cf.  Pop.  Sci.  Mo.,  I.  707;  Gildersleeve, 
op.   cit.,  49 ;    Spencer,  Study  of  Sociology,  264. 

2  The  argument  of  Webster  (Forum,  XXVIII,  459  ff.)  that  the 
study  of  a  language  makes  almost  no  demands  upon  the  reasoning  powers 
refutes  itself;  cf.  Jebb,  op.  cit.,  558;  Laurie,  Lectures  on  Languages  and 
Linguistic  Method,  9-10;  Fouillee,  102-3. 


34  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

in  all  seriousness  that  what  chiefly  surprises  a  well-trained  classi- 
cist in  the  controversial  and  popular  writings  of  scientific  men, 
especially  in  the  case  of  the  pseudo-  or  demi-sciences,i  is  not 
any  awkwardness  of  style  or  defect  in  "culture,"  but  the  quality 
of  the  dialectic  and  logic,  the  irrelevancies,  the  elaborations  of 
metaphors  from  illustrations  into  arguments,2  the  disproportion- 
ate emphasis  upon  trifles  and  truisms,^  the  ignoring  of  the 
issue,*  the  naive  dependence  on  authority,^  the  outbursts  of 
quaint   unction   and   ornate   rhetoric,^   the   constant    liability   to 

^  Illustrations  of  this  point  are  too  numerous  to  quote  here,  but  the 
repeated  misapprehensions  of  Plato's  plainest  meanings  in  Education  as 
Adjustment,  19,  62,  63,  90,  by  M.  V.  O'Shea,  professor  of  the  "science" 
and  art  of  education  in  the  University  of  Wisconsin,  are  typical.  If  such 
are  the  standards  of  accuracy  and  criticism  of  the  professor  of  the  science, 
what   will   be   those   of   the   novices? 

2  Huxley,  Science  and  Education,  81  ff.;  Spencer,  passim;  Dr.  George 
E.    Dawson,    "Parasitic    Culture,"   Pop.    Sci.   Monthly,    September,    19 10. 

^  Cf.  in  Culture  Demanded  by  Modern  Life  Paget's  page  on  the 
"certainty  that  continual  or  irregular  feeding  is  contrary  to  the  economy 
of   the  human   stomach." 

*  E.g.,  Huxley's  extension  of  "nature"  to  include  "men  and  their 
ways,"  and  the  fashioning  of  the  affections  and  of  the  will,"  Science  and 
Education,  83. 

5  Typical  examples  are  the  use  that  they  make  as  ultimate  authorities 
of  Grote's  Plato,  Lewes'  Biographical  History  of  Philosophy,  Lange's  His- 
tory of  Materialism,  and  Draper's  Intellectual  Development  of  Europe. 
Cf.  Tyndall,  Belfast  Address,  "And  I  have  entire  confidence  in  Dr. 
Draper."  Huxley  on  the  study  of  zoology:  "What  books  shall  I  read? 
None;  write  your  notes  out;  come  to  me  for  the  explanation  of  anything 
that  you  cannot  understand."  Neither  Youmans  nor  Herbert  Spencer 
could  ever  be  brought  to  admit  the  gross  error  into  which  Spencer  was 
led  (Data  of  Ethics,  §  19),  by  mistinterpreting  Bohn's  mistranslation  of 
Plato's  Republic,  339D.  For  another  example,  cf.  Jhering  ap.  Zielinski, 
III.  Huxley's  contrast  between  history  and  laboratory  science  (p.  126) 
is  fallacious.  He  fails  to  see  that  the  student  of  science  innocently  trans- 
fers to  literature,  history,  and  language  his  habit  of  accepting  on  faitl 
all  experimental  results  outside  of  his  particular  specialty,  while  the 
student  of  classical  philology  acquires  the  habit  of  testing  by  the  original 
evidence  every  statement  that  he  hears  from  his  teacher  or  reads  in  his 
textbooks.     Cf.   Smith,  supra,  p.   589,  n.    17;  Fouillee  op.  cit.,  62-63,   109. 

Those  who  repeat  (e.g.  Webster,  Forum,  XXVII,  453)  after  Spencer 
(Education,  79)  that  classical  training  establishes  the  habit  of  blind  sub- 
mission to  the  authority  of  grammar,  lexicon,  or  teacher  simply  do  not 
know  what  goes  on  in  a  good  classroom.  See  Zielinski,  op.  cit.,  90-92. 
Cf.  the  noble  passage  in  Mill,  op.  cit.,  IV,  355,  on  the  spirit  of  inquiry 
in  Plato  and  Aristotle  which  Huxley  (op.  cit.  211),  transfers  verbatim  to 
science,  ignoring  the  all-important  qualification,  "on  those  subjects  which 
remain  matters  of  controversy  from  the  difficulty  or  impossibility  of  bring- 
ing them  to  an  experimental  test."  Cf.  Jebb,  appendix  to  Sophocles  O.  T., 
219.  "It  is  among  the  advantages  and  the^  pleasures  of  classical  study 
that  it  gives  scope  for  such  discussions  as  this  passage  (O.  T.,  44-4S)  has 
evoked." 

«  "The  suction  pump  is  but  an  imitation  of  the  first  act  of  every  new- 
born infant,  nor  do  I  think  it  calculated  to  lessen  that  infant's  reverence. 
.  .  .  when  his  riper  experience  shows  him  that  the  atmosphere  was  his 
helper  in  extracting  the  first  draught  from  his  mother's  bosom"  (Tyndall, 
on  the  "Study  of  Physics.") 


LATIN   AND   GREEK  35 

stumble  like  a  child,  or  quibble  like  a  sophist,^  with  regard  to 
the  fair  presumptive  meaning  of  alien,  divergent,  or  hostile  utter- 
ances.2  There  is  for  them  no  intermediate  between  the  rigid, 
unequivocal  scientific  formula  and  mere  rhetoric  or  sophistry,  be- 
cause they  have  never  been  trained  to  the  apprehension  of  all 
recorded  speech  as  a  text  whose  full  meaning  can  be  ascertained 
only  by  a  critical,  historical,  and  philological  interpretation  of 
the  context.  The  way  in  which  the  classics  provide  us  with  this 
training  can  be  fully  appreciated  only  through  experience.^  I 
have  attempted  a  description  elsewhere  in  this  journal,*  and  it 
has  often  been  set  forth  by  others,  and  most  admirably  by  the 
representatives  of  the  law  in  these  symposia.^  The  law  itself  is 
the  only  discipline  comparable  to  the  classics  in  this  regard.^ 
But  while  more  severe  perhaps  and  strictly  intellectual  it  is 
narrower  in  its  range''  and  does  not  include  the  union  of  feeling 
and  intelligence  which  makes  the  study  of  the  classics  an  in- 
comparable method  of  general  education.  For  this  reason  though 
the  law  would  be  the  best  available  substitute  for  the  discipline 
of  the  classics,  thoughtful  lawyers  would  be  the  last  to  advocate 
the  substitution. 

But  it  is  time  to  turn  from  these  special  considerations  to  a 
broader  view  of  the  whole  subject.  Classical  education  is  not 
an  academic  superstition,  an  irrational  survival  of  the  Renais- 
sance.^ It  is  a  universal  phenomenon  of  civilization.  Higher 
non-vocational  education  has  always  been  largely  literary  and 
linguistic,  and  it  has  always  been  based  on  a  literature  distin- 
guished from  the  ephemeral  productivity  of  the  hour  as  classic. 

*  Paget,  op.  cit.,  p.  183:  "The  student  of  nature's  purposes  should 
surely   be    averse   from   leading   a   purposeless   existence." 

2  Spencer,  passim;  Huxley,  op.  cit.,  144:  "If  their  common  outfit 
draws  nothing  from  the  stores  of  physical  science."  Both  Mill  and  Arnold 
insist  on  acquaintance  with  the  results  of  science.  Cf.  too  Huxley^s  sub- 
stitution of  Middle  Ages  for  Renaissance  (ibid.,  149-50)  and  his  conse- 
quent contradiction  of  his  own  admission  on  p.  ,  209,  "that  the  study  of 
classical   literature   familiarized   men    with   ideas   of  the   order   of  nature." 

'  Zielinski,  op.  cit.,   31  ff. 

*  V,   225-29. 

"  Cf.  Starr  on  the  discipline  of  the  judgment  and  training  in  the  in- 
terpretation of  texts,  School  Rev.  (1907),  412,  415;  Evans,  ibid.,  421.  Fos- 
ter,   ibid.    (1909),    377-79' 

«  Whewell  adds  that  it  is  like  mathematics,  essentially  deductive.  With- 
out committing  ourselves  to  the  "inductive  method  of  learning  languages" 
we  may  say  that  the  interpretation  of  a  classic  text  is  often  an  excellent 
exercise   in   "inductive-observant"   thinking. 

'  Hutchins,   ibid.    (1907),    427-28. 

■  For  this  commonplace  see  infra,  p.  601. 


36  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

It  was  so  at  Rome,  in  China,  in  Hindustan,  and  among  the  Arabs. 
The  Greeks,  whose  supreme  originality  makes  them  an  exception 
to  every  rule,  are  only  an  apparent  exception  to  this — they  studied 
Homer^  and  their  own  older  classics  to  form,  not  inform,  their 
minds.2  This  universal  tendency  is  only  in  part  explained  by 
the  religious  or  superstitious  reverence  for  sacred  texts.  It  is 
in  the  main  due  to  an  instinctive  perception  of  the  principles  on 
which  the  case  for  the  classics  still  rests.  The  education  of  those 
who  can  afford  time  for  non-vocational  study  is  not  in  the  nar- 
rower or  more  immediate  sense  of  the  words  a  "preparation  for 
life"3  but,  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  individual,  a  develop- 
ment of  the  faculties;  from  the  point  of  view  of  society,  the 
transmission  of  a  cultural,  social,  moral  tradition.^  It  must  be 
a  broad  discipline  of  the  intellectual  powers  that  shall  at  the 
same  time  attune  the  aesthetic  and  the  moral  feelings  to  a  cer- 
tain key.5  No  study  but  that  of  language  and  literature  can  do 
this,  and  it  is  best  done  through  an  older  and  more  synthetic 
form  of  language  and  a  literature  that  is,  in  relation  to  the  stu- 
dent and  his  environment,  classic.^  This  is  the  meaning  of  the 
late  W.  T.  Harris's  somewhat  cryptic  Hegelism  that  self-aliena- 
tion is  necessary  to  self-knowledge.*^  Or  to  put  it  more  con- 
cretely, the  critical  interpretation  or  translation  of  such  a  lan- 
guage supplies  the  simplest  and  most  effective  all-round  disci- 
pline of  the  greatest  number  of  faculties.  The  ideal  form  and 
content  of  such  a  literature  elevated  above  the  trivialities,  dis- 
engaged from  the  complexities,  disinterested  in  the  conflicts  of 
.  contemporary  life^   awakens  the   aesthetic  and   literary  sense,^ 

*  Cf .  Breal,  553:  "On  oublie  qu'ils  avaient  leur  antiquite  dans  Tepopee." 
2  Cf .   Bain,   Contemp.  Rev.  xxxv,  837;  "The  fact  that  the  Greeks  were 

not   acquainted  with   any  language   but   their   own     ...      I   have    never 
known  any  attempt  to  parry  this  thrust." 

*  Far  such  tautologous  formulas  as  definitions  of  education  cf.  my 
"Discipline  in  Modern  Education,"  The  Bookman  (March,  1906),  94:  to 
the  list  there  given  add  "Adjustment,"  which  obviously  includes  every- 
thing and  therefore  anything. 

*  See  Bruneti^re,  op.  cit.,  406,  and  the  admirable  work  of  Fouillee, 
Education  from  a  National  Standpoint,  in  Appleton's  "International  Edu- 
cation  Series,"  p.   54.   and  passim. 

5  Arnold's  "relating  what  we  have  learnt  ...  to  the  sense  for 
conduct  and  the  sense  for  beauty." 

*  "There  are  five  times  as  many  mental  processes  to  undertake  in 
translating  from  Latin  and  Greek  into  English  as  there  are  in  translating 
a  modern  language."     Lord  Goschen;  cf.  supra,  n.  21;  infra,  n.  gg. 

^  "Self-alienation  which  consists  in  projecting  one's  self  into  the 
idoms  of  a  dead  language,"  etc.,  etc. — P.  R.  Shipman,  Pop.  Sci.  Mo., 
XVII.   145. 

s  Gladstone  op.  Jebb,   570. 

"Jebb,  526.  Cf.  the  definition  of  education  as  the  aesthetic  revelation 
of  the  world. 


LATIN   AND   GREEK  37 

ennobles  and  refines  feeling.^   And  the  very  definition  of  classic 

implies  that  it  is  the  source  and  chief  depository  of  the  national 
tradition  either  of  religion  or  culture  or  both. 

For  modern  Europe  these  conditions  were  fulfilled  by  the 
study  of  the  classics  of  Greece  and  Rome  which  the  Renais- 
sance established  in  the  face  of  a  scholasticism  that  called  itself 
science,^  and  which,  adapted  to  altered  conditions,  we  have  still 
to  defend  agaijist  the  exclusive  pretensions  of  sciences  that,  un- 
informed by  the  temper  of  humanism,  threaten  to  renew  the 
spiritual  aridity  if  not  the  intellectual  futility  of  scholasticism. 

The  debate  which  began  in  the  reaction  from  the  Renaissance 
and  found  its  first  notable  expression  in  the  famous  "quarrel 
of  the  ancients  and  moderns"  is  now  more  than  two  hundred 
years  old.^    New  arguments  are  hardly  discoverable  at  this  date. 

1  "Much  lost  I,   something  stayed  behind, 

A  snatch  maybe  of  ancient  song; 
Some  breathing  of  a  deathless  mind,  • 

Some  love  of  truth,  some  hate  of  wrong." — lonica. 
'  Cf.  University  of  Illinois  Studies,  III,  No.  vii,  p.  29. 
■  Not  to  speak  of  the  polemic  of  the  more  illiberal  Christian  fathers 
against  "pagan"  studies,  the  controversy  could  be  traced  back  to  the  op- 
position of  scholasticism  and  the  arts  in  the  mediaeval  universities;  cf. 
Univ.  of  III.  Studies,  III,  No.  vii,  p.  19,  27  ff.  Or  we  could  begin  in 
full  Renaissance  with  the  humanist  Vives,  advocate  of  the  study  of  the 
vernacular;  with  Bacon,  who,  though  himself  widely  read  in  the  classics 
and  writing  in  Latin,  is  the  chief  source  of  the  rhetoric  of  the  eighteenth 
and  nineteenth-century  polemic  of  scientific  men  against  the  classics;  or, 
better  yet,  with  Descartes,  who  anticipates  by  two  hundred  years  the  type 
of  Spencer  and  Youmans  and  President  Stanley  Hall.  Cf.  in  Cousin, 
X,  375,  his  funny  letter  to  Madame  Elizabeth  deploring  Queen  Christina's 
enthusiasm  for  Greek.  So  Spencer  more  in  sorrow  than  in  anger  com- 
ments (Autobiog.,  II,  183)  on  Mills*  Inaugural  which  Youmans  quotes 
not  quite  ingenuously  (Gildersleeve,  op.  cit.,  ii)  It  is  easy  to  cite  sporadic 
denunciations  of  the  exclusive  study  of  the  classics  and  satire  of  bad 
teaching  from  the  writers  of  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries. 
Sir  Thomas  Browne,  himself  steeped  in  the  classics,  incidentally  writes, 
anticipating  Spencer,  in  the  style  of  Macaulay:  ** 'Tis  an  unjust  way  of 
compute,  to  magnify  a  weak  head  for  some  Latin,  abilities  and  to  under- 
value a  solid  judgment,  because  he  knows  not  the  genealogy  of  Hector." 
Cf.  Rigault's  well-known  book;  Macaulay's  "Essay  on  Sir  William 
Temple";  Jebb's  Bentley;  Brunetifere  tipoques,  220;  Ren4  Doumie,  "La 
Manie  de  la  Modernite,  l^tudes  de  Litt.  Francaise,  III,  1-23;  Sandys, 
History  of  Classical  Scholarship,  II,  403  ff-  For  the  eighteenth  century 
in  France  with  its  strange  transition  from  dying  pseudo-classicism  to  the 
second  classical  renaissance,  see  the  excellent  work  of  Bertrand,  Fin  du 
Classicisme,  and  for  Germany,  see  Paulsen,  Geschichte  des  Gelehrten 
Unterrichte,  II.  In  nineteenth-century  controversy,  the  chief  -epochs  are 
marked  by  (i)  Sydney  Smith's  "Too  Much  Latin  and  Greek,"  Ed.  Rev. 
(1809) — mainly  an  attack  on  Latin  verse,  etc.  Anticlassicists  quote  from 
it  at  second  hand  "the  safe  and  elegant  imbecility  of  classical  learning." 
They  should  also  quote,  "up  to  a  certain  point  we  would  educate  every 
young  man  in  Latin  and  Greek."  (2)  Macaulay,  "The  London  Univer- 
sity," Ed.  Rev.  (1826),  a  political  tract  against  the  Tory  opposition  in 
Macaulay's  most  extreme  rhetorical  style.  With  the  "Essay  on  Bacon" 
it  has  served  as  a  repertory  of  fallacies,  and  it  is  probably  a  chief  source 
of  Spencer.  (3)  Spencer's  Essay  on  Education  (1858-60),  mainly  an 
elaboration  of  the  fallacy  (anticipated  by  Plato,   Rep.,  438E)   that  know!- 


38  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

At  the  most  we  may  endeavor  to  weigh  the  old  ones  with  more 
discretion,  adapt  them  to  the  present  conditions,  and  throughout 
to  insist  on  a  vital  distinction  which  defines  the  issue  today.  I 
refer  to  the  distinction  between  past  adjustments  or  reductions 
of  exclusive  or  excessive  claims  of  classical  studies  and  present 
efforts  and  tendencies  to  aboHsh  them  altogether.  Here,  as  often, 
a  quantitative  distinction  becomes  qualitative,  a  difference  of  de- 
gree passes  into  a  difference  of  kind.^  The  truism  that  Greece 
and  Rome  mean  less  for  us  than  they  did  for  the  men  of  the 
Renaissance  is  not  even  a  presumption  that  they  count  for  little 
or  nothing.2  Apart  from  all  technical  considerations  of  curri- 
cula, degrees,  and  educational  machinery,  it  is  broadly  desirable 
that  classical  studies  should  continue  to  hold  a  place  in  higher 
education  fairly  proportionate  to  their  significance  for  our  total 
culture.  They  will  not  hold  that  place  if  the  representatives  of 
the  scientific  and  "modern"  subjects  enter  into  an  unholy  alliance 
with  the  legions  of  Philistia  to  swell  the  unthinking  clamor 
against  dead  languages  and  useless  studies.  Whatever  the  talk- 
ing delegates  of  science  may  say  in  their  haste,  thoughtful  sci- 
entific men^  require  no  professor  of  Greek  to  tell  them  that  the 

edge  of  "useful  things"  is  for  educational  purposes  necessarily  and  always 
the  most  useful  knowledge.  To  this  we  may  relate  the  controversies  of 
the  fifties  and  sixties  and  their  prolongation  to  our  own  time.  See  the 
various  papers  dating  from  1854  on  in  Huxley's  Science  and  Education. 
The  year  1867  marks  a  date  with  Mill's  Inaugural  and  Youmans'  Culture 
Demanded  by  Modern  Life;  and  Essays  on  a  Liberal  Education.  Before 
the  discussion  of  these  had  died  away  in  America  the  conflict  was  re- 
kindled by  Charles  Francis  Adams'  College  Fetich,  since  which  it  has 
been  continuous  and  can  very  easily  be  followed  in  the  indices  of  the 
Nation,  the  Atlantic  Monthly,  the  Popular  Science  Monthly,  the  various 
journals  of  education,  the  Independent,  etc.  For  Germany  see  Paulsen, 
Geschichte  des  Gelehrten  Unterrichts,  II,  441  ff.,  595;  "Intervention  of 
the  Emperor,"  620  ff.  For  France  cf.  Fouilee,  94,  and  Translator's  Pref- 
ace, xiii;  Weiss.  "L'Education  Classique,"  Revue  des  deux  Mondes, 
1873,  V.  392;  Brunetiere,  "La  Question  du  Latin"  (review  of  Raoul 
Frary),  ibid.,  1885,  VI,  862;  Breal,  "La  Tradition  du  Latin,"  ibid., 
CV,  551. 

1  So  already  Gildersleeve  in  1868  (p.  10) :  "Sydney  Smith's  complaint 
of  'Too  much  Latin  and  Greek'  has  become  the  war-cry,  'Little  Latin 
and  no   Greek  at  all.'  " 

*  For  this  common  non  sequitur  cf.  Zielinski,  op.  cit.,  15;  Huxley, 
op.  cit.,  149;  Macaulay,  passim.  The  argument  is  used  already  by  Des- 
cartes. 

•I  cite  a  few  names  at  random:  Berthelot,  Science  et  Morale,  125, 
favors  two  types  of  education,  "I'un  fonde  essentiellement  sur  les  lettres 
anciennes,"  etc.  Lord  Kelvin,  in  his  Life  by  Thompson,  p.  1115:  "I  think 
for  the  sake  of  mathematicians  and  science  students  Cambridge  and  Ox- 
ford should  keep  Greek,  of  which  even  a  very  moderate  extent  is  of  very 
great  value."  Humboldt's  and  Emil  du  Bois  Reymond's  views  are  well 
known  (Fouill^e,  op  cit.,  177).  See  also  President  A.  C.  Humphreys  in 
Proceed.  Forty-Eighth  Ann.  Commence.  Penn.  State  Coll.,  44-  Jo?L^ 
Cook,  Pop.  Set.  Mo.,  XXIV,  i  ff.    Frederick  B.  Loomis,  Independent,  LIX 


LATIN   AND   GREEK  39 

languages  and  literatures  of  the  1300  years  of  continuous  civili- 
zation from  Homer  to  Julian  subtend  a  far  larger  arc  of  the 
great  circle  of  knowledge  than  Sanskrit  or  Zend  or  the  other 
specialties  to  which  they  are  so  often  compared.  Whether  they 
hold  this  place  by  their  intrinsic  beauty  and  sublimity,^  by  "the 
grand  simplicity  of  their  statement  of  the  everlasting  problems 
of  human  life,^  by  their  disciplinary  value,  by  their  enormous 
contribution  of  facts  to  the  mental  and  moral  and  historical  sci- 
ences^ and  the  "wisdom  of  life,"*  by  their  renewal  of  the  in- 
tellectual life  of  Europe  at  the  Renaissance  and  yet  again  at  the 
German  revival  and  reorganization  of  science  a4:  the  close  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  or  as  the  sources  and  inspiration  of  modern 
literature^  and  by  their  still  dominant  influence  in  the  greatest 
English  poets  of  the  nineteenth  century  or  by  all  these  things 
together,  matters  not.  They  hold  the  place,  and  they  cannot  be 
relegated  to  the  position  of  erudite  specialties  without  an  emascu- 
lation of  our  discipline  and  an  impoverishment  of  our  culture.® 
But  controversy  like  all  literary  forms  tends  to  stereotype 
itself.  Educational  conventions  still  echo  to  denunciation  of 
abuses  as  obsolete  as  the  Inquisition.  Language  that  would  be 
an  exaggeration  if  used  of  the  most  hide-bound  old-style,  Latin 
verse  writing  English  public  school,  the  narrowest  French  lycee, 

(1905),  486.  Cf.  Whitman,  Barnes,  Pierce,  Dabney,  Dana  in  the  sym- 
posium of  April  3,  1909.  The  hostile  testimony  (e.g.,  of  Nef)  refers 
largely  to  required  or  excessive  classics.  Cf.  the  fine  words  of  Huxley, 
Science  and  Education,  98  and  182.  Tyndall,  Fragments  of  Science 
("Home  Library"),  415.  Thayer  in  St.  Louis  Congress,  VI,  218:  "When 
in  the  period  of  so-called  secondary  education  it  is  proposed  to  substi- 
tute the  study  of  the  natural  sciences  for  a  good  training  in  the  human- 
ities, there  is  danger  of  drying  up  some  of  the  sources  from  which  this 
very  scientific  expansion  has  sprung."  For  German  scientific  men  see 
Holmes,   Nat.    Rev.,   XLII,    103  ff. 

1  Jebb,  529;  Mill,  op,  cit.,  IV,  352:  "Compositions  which  from  the 
altered  conditions  of  human  life  are  likely  to  be  seldom  paralleled  in 
their  sustained  excellence  by  the  times  to  come." 

'  Huxley,  Science    and  Education,   98. 

'  For  the  propaedeutic  implicit  or  indirect  educational  values  of 
classical  study  cf.  Shorey  in  School  Rev.,  V,  226-27',  the  illustrations 
drawn  from  his  own  teaching  by  Zielinski,  op.  cit.,  99  ff.  ("Ein  Philolog 
kann  alles  brauchen") ;  Shorey;  "Philology  and  Classical  Philology," 
Class.  Rev.,  I,  182-83  ff . ;  Matthew  Arnold's  charming  "Speech  at  Eton," 
Irish  Essays,  V;  Wenley,  "The  Nature  of  Culture  Studies,"  School  Rev., 
June,    1905. 

*  Mill,  op.  cit.,  IV,  354  ff. ;  Gildersleeve,  op.  cit.,  21;  Jebb,  op.  cit.,  540. 
"Jebb,  op.   cit.,  54;  injfra,  p.   612. 

•  Cf.  among  countless  quotable  utterances  to  this  effect  from  the  chief 
writers  of  the  nineteenth  century,  Richter  cited  by  Zielinski,  op.  cit.,  109, 
and  Laurie,  op.  cit.,  186:  "Mankind  would  sink  into  a  bottomless  abyss 
if  our  youth  on  their  journey  to  the  fair  of  life  did  not  pass  through 
the  tranquil  and  noble  shrine  of  antiquity."  Froude,  Words  About  Ox- 
ford: "This  would  be  to  exclude  ourselves  from  an  acquaintance  with 
all  past   time   except  in   monkish   fiction,"   etc. 


40  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

is  applied  to  "the  tyranny  of  the  classics"  in  high  schools  where 
the  teacher  is  forbidden  to  use  the  Bible  and  is  applauded  for 
taking  the  daily  newspaper  as  a  textbook.  The  protests  of' 
French  liberals  against  the  former  official  requirement  of  a  class- 
ical education  for  access  to  all  professions  and  public  offices  are 
transferred  to  American  conditions  to  which  they  are  wholly 
inapplicable.  1  The  arguments  of  Sydney  Smith  denouncing 
compulsory  Latin  verse  writing  and  of  Macaulay  holding  a  brief 
for  the  University  of  London  against  the  obstructionist  preju- 
dices of  Oxford  or  elaborating  a  false  antithesis  between  the 
Baconian  and  the  Platonic  philosophy  are  taken  from  the  con- 
text^  and  used  in  support  of  policies  which  Sydney  Smith  and 
Macaulay  would  have  been  the  first  to  deplore. 

It  is  time  to  recognize  that  the  work  of  Huxley,  Tyndall, 
Spencer,  Yotunans,  and  President  Eliot  has  been  done  once  for 
all.  "The  mere  man  of  letters  who  affects  to  ignore  and  despise 
science"  may  have  existed  in  Huxley's  England.  Today  he  is 
as  extinct  as  the  dodo.  The  "enemies  of  science"  of  whom  Pro- 
fessor Lankester  complains  are  speech  automatisms  surviving  in 
the  rhetoric  of  science. 

The  victory  of  our  scientific  colleagues  is  overwhelming,  and 
the  Cinderella^  pose  is  an  anachronism.-*  Huxley  was  fighting 
to  reform  schools  in  which  all  boys,  whatever  their  tastes,  were 
compelled  to  compose  Latin  verses,  and  in  which,  as  he  said,  with 
gross  but  then  pardonable  exaggeration,  twelve  years'  hard  study 
of  Greek  left  the  victim  unable  to  construe  a  page  of  easy  prose. 
And  so  today  professors  of  science  who  are  not  quite  Huxleys 
step  out  of  their  palatial  laboratories  and  splendidly  equipped 
offices  to  thunder  against  the  obstruction  of  modern  progress  by 
classics  in  schools  where  not  2  per  cent  of  the  students  learn  the* 
Greek  alphabet,  where  no  one  is  required  to  study  Latin,  and 
few  do  study  it  more  than  two  or  three  years.  They  forget  that 
if  Huxley  were  with  us  today  he  would  probably  be  pleading  for 
a  revival  of  classical  studies.^  Whatever  the  grievances  of  the 
past,  present  attacks  on  the  classics  are  inspired  by  the  revolt 
against  discipline  and  hard  work,  the  impatience  of  all  serious 

^  See  Shorey  in  Proc.     sth  Conf.  Assoc.  Am.    Univ.,  70. 

*  E.g.,  by  Woodward,  Proceedings  Am.  Assoc,  for  Adv.  of  Sci.,  1907; 
cf.  Indep.,  LXII,  107;  and  by  H.  W.,  "The  Battle  of  the  Books,"  West- 
minster, CLX;  425  ff, 

3  Spencer,    op.    cit.,   87,   copied  by   all  his    successors. 

*  "It  seems  clear  that  science  nowadays  is  proud  and  not  literature." — 
Fouillee,   op.  cit.,  59. 

■  Cf.  the  enormous  concession  in  Science  and  Education,  153. 


LATIN   AND   GREEK  41 

pre-vocational  study,  the  demand  for  quick  utilitarian  results, 
and  absorption  in  the  up-to-date.^  Our  scientific  colleagues  who 
invoke  these  sentiments  against  us  will  find  that  they  are  play- 
ing with  fire  and  enlisting  allies  whom  they  cannot  control.  The 
public  will  see  no  logical  halting-place  between  their  position 
and  that  of  Mr.  Crane  of  Chicago.  The  boy. whom  they  have 
encouraged  to  shirk  the  discipline  of  Latin  will  find  mathematics 
and  physics  still  more  irksome.  The  professional  constituency 
of  engineers  and  chemical  experts  they  will  retain.  But  the 
majority  will  go  snap  hunting  in  the  happy  fields  of  English 
literature  and  the  social  sciences.  Let  not  our  scientific  col- 
leagues deceive  themselves.  They  are  more  allied  to  us  by  the 
severity  and  definiteness  of  their  discipline  than  divided  by  differ- 
ences of  matter  and  method.  In  the  fundamental  classification  of 
studies  into  those  which  exercise  and  those  which  titillate  the 
mind  they  belong  with  us.  You  cannot  really  teach  anything  by 
lectures,  experience  meetings,  heart-to-heart  talks,  the  pseudo- 
Socratic  method,  and  expansion  of  the  student's  personality.  But 
you  cannot  even  pretend  to  teach  classics  and  the  exact  sciences 
in  this  way.  In  these  days  that  is  a  bond.  As  serious  workers 
and  teachers  you  belong  with  us.  The  allies  whom  you  en- 
courage to  sap  our  discipline  with  the  "soft  moisture  of  irrele- 
vant sentimentality"  will  not  stop  there.  They  are  past  masters 
in  what  Mrs  Wharton  calls  the  art  of  converting  second-hand 
ideas  into  first-hand  emotions.  They  will  humanize  your  cold 
abstract  sciences  in  a  way  that  will  surprise  you.  I  quote  from 
the  report  of  a  recent  educational  conference: — 

At  3  p,  m.  Miss  N.  Andrews,  principal  of  the  Happy  Grove  Girls* 
School,  conducted  a  regular  junior  class  meeting.  A  very  helpful  feature 
of  this  meeting  was  an  illustration  by  the  use  of  iodine  and  hyposulphite 
of  soda,  showing  how  sin  defiles  the  heart,  and  how  the  blood  of  Jesus 
can  cleanse  it. 

When  this  generation  of  kindergarten  Christian  Scientists 
arrives  in  your  laboratories  you  will  wish  too  late  that  they  had 
been  set  to  gnaw  the  file  of  Latin  grammar  for  a  year  or  two.^ 
You  will  find  a  new  meaning  in  Professor  Karl  Pearson's  state- 
ment^  that  the  most  valuable  acquisitions  of  his  early  education 
were  the  notions  of  method  which  he  derived  from  Greek  gram- 

*  Cf.  the  brilliant  and  caustic  paper  by  Mrs.  Emily  James  Putnam  in 
Putnam's,  III,  418;  Zielinski,   op.  cit.,   206. 

'  Cf.  Sadler  in  School  Rev.  (1906),  403:  "What  ....  can  be  done 
in   a   subject   such   as   physiology   when,"    etc. 

•  Grammar  of  Science. 


42  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

mar.i  You  will  admit  that  after  all  there  may  be  something  in 
Anatole  France's  warning  that  since  the  methods  of  science  ex- 
ceed the  limitations  of  children  the  teacher  will  confine  himself 
to  the  terminology.  You  will  be  able  to  interpret  Brunetiere's 
remark  that  neither  infancy  nor  youth  can  support  the  intoxica- 
tion with  which  science  at  first  dazes  its  neophytes,  and  you  will 
sadly  verify  the  accomplishment  of  George  Eliot's  prophecy  of  a 
generation  "dizzy  with  indigestion  of  recent  science  and  phil- 
osophy." 

Such  terms  as  "culture,"  "discipHne,"  "utiHty,"  a  "liberal" 
education  have  been  much  bandied  about  in  idle  controversy.^ 
They  are  all,  perhaps,  equivocal  or  question-begging,  and  hardly 
admit  of  authoritative  definition.  Yet  you  all  understand  them 
well  enough  to  know  what  I  mean  by  saying  that  the  study  of 
the  exact  sciences  yields  utility,  discipline,  and  a  kind  of  culture ; 
that  classics  give  culture,  discipline,  and  a  kind  of  utility;  and 
that  today  they  are  conjointly  opposed  to  a  vast  array  of  miscel- 
laneous "free  electives"  which  are  more  popular  largely  because 
as  at  present  taught  they  demand  and  impart  neither  discipline 
nor  culture  nor  utility,  but  only  information,  entertainment,  and 
intellectual  dissipation.  These  studies  fall  into  two  chief  groups, 
the  demi-sciences,  that  is,  the  so-called  moral  and  social  sciences, 
and  modern  linguistic  and  literary  studies.  I  intend  no  dis- 
paragement by  the  term  demi-sciences.  There  is  no  higher  uni- 
versity work  than  pioneer  exploration  of  subjects  not  yet 
definitely  constituted  as  sciences.  But  the  personal  magnetism 
in  the  classroom  of  a  Giddings,  a  Small,  a  Vincent,  a  Ross,  a 
Cooley  should  not  blind  us  to  the  fact  that  these  studies  demand, 
as  Plato  said,3  the  severest,  not  the  loosest,  preparatory  training, 
and  that,  'freely  elected,"  without  such  preparation,  they  will 
merely  muddle  the  mind  of  the  average  American  undergraduate. 

The  outspoken  expression  of  this  opinion,  which  the  majority 
of  classicists  share,  threatens  to  convert  the  old  warfare  of 
science  and  classics  into  a  conflict  between  classics  and  the  social 

*  Cf.  also  Fouillee,  op.  cit.,  66,  top. 

'  Cf .  Huxley,  op.  cit.,  141,  on  "Real  Culture";  Flexner  in  Science, 
XXIX,  370;  Frederick  Harrison's  satire  on  Arnold's  "Culture  and  An- 
archy," with  Arnold's  reply;  Youmans*  "The  Culture  Demanded  by  Mod- 
ern Life";  Essays  on  a  Liberal  Education,  Macmillan,  1867;  Newcomb, 
"What  is  a  Liberal  Education?"  in  Science,  III,  435;  Woodward  in 
Science,  XIV,  476;  Huxley,  op.  cit.,  86;  Mrs.  Emily  James  Putnam, 
Putnam's,   III,   421. 

« Cf.  my  paper  on  "Some  Ideals  of  Education  in  Plato's  Republic," 
Educational  Bi-Monthly,  February,   1908. 


LATIN   AND   GREEK  43 

sciences.^  For  the  history  of  this  merry  war  we  cannot  delay. 
One  point  only  concerns  us  here.  Sociology  and  the  new  psy- 
chology have  staked  out  the  entire  coast  of  the  unknown  conti- 
nent of  knowledge  and  claim  all  the  hinterland.  Abstractly  and 
a  priori  this  is  plausible  enough.  An  infinite  psychologist  could 
pronounce  on  the  credibility  of  a  witness,  advise  infallibly  on  the 
choice  of  a  vocation,  and  prescribe  the  proper  intellectual  diet 
for  every  idiosyncrasy.  In  a  finite  psychologist  it  is — well,  this 
is  an  age  of  advertising. 

Like  claims  could  be  made  for  an  abstract  or  ideal  sociology. 
Education  is  preparation  for  life,  and  human  life  and  mind  exist 
and  develop  only  in  and  through  society.^  After  the  psycholo- 
gist has  annexed  everything  else,  the  sociologist  may  logically 
swallow  him,  while  the  physiologist  lies  in  wait  for  both.  They 
may  be  left  to  fight  that  out — a  hundred  or  a  thousand  years 
hence.  But  today  there  is  no  science  of  psychology,^  sociology, 
or  pedagogy  that  can  pronounce  with  any  authority  on  either  the 
aims  or  the  methods  of  education.*  The  confident  affirmations 
of  our  colleagues  in  these  departments  are  not,  then,  to  be  re- 
ceived as  the  pronouncements  of  experts,  but  as  the  opinions  of 
observers  who  like  ourselves  may  be  partisans.^ 

Throughout  this  discusion  I  have  taken  for  granted  the 
general  belief  of  educators,  statesmen,  and  the  man  in  the  street, 
from  Plato  and  Aristole  to  John  Stuart  Mill,  Faraday,^ 
Lincoln,''^  President  Taft^  and  Anatole  France,  that  there  is 
such  a  thing  as  intellectual  discipline,  and  that  some  studies  are  a 

^  Many  representatives  of  the  mental  and  moral  sciences,  of  course, 
recognize  that  classics  are  still  the  best  available  propaedeutic  for  them; 
notably   Fouillee,    and   with   some    reserves    Giddings. 

'  To  readers  of  Plato's  Protagoras  and  Republic,  there  is  something 
supremely  funny  in  the  statement  that  "the  most  important  general  advance 
[in  psychology  from  1881  to  1906]  seems  to  be  the  recognition  that  the  mind 
of  the  human  adult  is  a  social  product." — E.  Ray  Lankester,  The  King- 
dom  of  Man,   122. 

■  Cf.  Jowett's  Plato,  IV,  175,  "On  the  nature  and  limits  of  Psychology." 

*  Cf .  Zielinski,  op.  cit.,  23;  James,  Talks  to  Teachers,  130-37;  Anatole 
France,  Le  Jardin  d' Epicure,  218:  "Quand  la  biologie  sera  constituteci 
e'est  a  dire  dans  quelques  millions  d'annees,  on  pourra  peut-etre  con- 
struire  une  sociologie";  Shorey,  Class,  Jour.,  I,  187;  St.  Louis  Congress, 
III,   370,   375-76. 

"  Observe  the  disinterested  scientific  temper  in  which  Superintendent 
Harris  discusses  the  psychology  of  formal  discipline:  "But  Greek  is  already 
a  vanishing  element  in  our  secondary  schools,  and  it  needs  but  a  few 
more   strokes   to   put  it  entirely  hors  de  combat." — Education,  XXV,  426. 

«  Culture  Demanded  by  Modern  Life,  200. 

'  See  Croly,  Promise  of  American  Life,  91-92. 

*  Bryn  Mawr  Alumnae  Quarterly,  IV,   No.    2,    79. 


44  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

better  mental  gymnastic  than  others.  This,  like  other  notions  of 
"common-sense,"  is  subject  to  all  due  qualifications  and  limita- 
tions. But  it  is  now  denied  altogether,  and  the  authority  of 
Plato,  Mill,  Faraday,  or  Lincoln  is  met  by  the  names  of  Hins- 
dale, O'Shea,  Bagley,  Horn,  Thorndike,  Bolton,  and,  DeGarmo. 
Tastes  in  authorities  differ.  But  these  gentlemen  are  cited,  not 
as  authorities,  but  as  experts  who  have  proved  by  scientific  ex- 
periment and  ratiocination  that  mental  discipline  is  a  myth. 
There  is  no  such  proof,  and  no  prospect  of  it.  There  are  in 
general  no  laboratory  experiments  that  teach  us  anything  about 
the  higher  mental  processes  which  we  cannot  observe  and  infer 
by  better  and  more  natural  methods.^  Still  less  are  there  any 
that  can  even  approximate  to  the  solution  of  the  complicated 
problem  of  the  total  value  and  effect  of  a  course  of  study.  There 
is  no  authentic  deliverance  of  science  here  to  oppose  to  the  vast 
jpresumption  of  common-sense  and  the  belief  of  the  majority  of 
educated  and  practical  men. 2  And  we  are  therefore  still  entitled 
to  ask,  H  you  reject  the  classics  and  the  elective  system  is  a 
failure,  what  are  you  prepared  to  substitute  P^  Theoretically 
there  are  alternatives  which,  not  being  a  fanatic,  I  would  gladly 

*  Inserting  needles  into  holes,  estimating  areas,  drawing  with  the 
hand  hidden  behind  a  screen,  etc.,  etc.,  are  all  falsifying  simplifications 
of  the  infinitely  complex  problem  to  the  solution  of  which  they  may  or 
may  not  lead  in  the  years  to  come.  Nor  despite  Dr.  Dawson's  warning 
against  "neurones  and  connecting  fibres  fashioned  through  and  through 
for  the  study  of  the  Latin  language,"  do  we  know  enough  about  "localiza- 
tion of  function"  to  argue  the  question  intelligently  on  this  basis.  The 
leading  opponents  of  the  idea  of  mental  discipline,  whenever  they  forget 
themselves,  all  take  it  for  granted,  or  make  self-stultifying  concessions  to  it. 

^  Cf.  Zielinski,  op.  cit.,  12,  22;  Plato,  Republic,  526B,  527D.  There 
is  no  space  to  continue  the  discussion  here.  But  I  doubt  whether  many 
competent  psychologists  will  be  willing  seriously  to  maintain  that  serious 
results  have  as  yet  been  a6hieved.  The  whole  recent  "unsettlement  of 
the  doctrine  of  formal  discipline"  took  its  start  as  a  polemical  move  and 
not  as  a  disinterested  scientific  investigation.  And  it  still  bears  the  im- 
press of  its  origin.  It  was  perhaps  suggested  by  Youmans'  essay  on 
"Mental  Discipline  in  Education,"  introductory  to  The  Culture  Demanded 
by  Modern  Life.  Cf.  O'Shea,  Education  as  Adjustment,  ix:  "My  chief 
motive  ....  is  to  try  to  show  that  the  doctrine  of  formal  training, 
etc.,  etc.";  Heck,  Mental  Discipline  and  Educational  Values,  I,  strangely 
says,  after  Monroe,  that  the  doctrine  of  formal  discipline  was  first  clearly 
formulated  in  the  seventeenth  century  £n  defense  of  classical  studies. 
Professor  Bagley,  The  Educative  Process,  211,  gravely  alleges  against  the 
doctrine  his  experience  that  a  year  of  habituation  to  hard  work  at  his 
desk  did  not  discipline  him  out  of  a  disinclination  to  regrular  work  on 
the  farm  in  his  summer  vacation.  This  may  pair  off  with  the  "experi- 
ments" which  show  that  students  who  are  compelled  to  prepare  neat 
papers  in  one  subject  will  not  spontaneously  take  the  same  extra  pains 
in  other  classrooms    {ibid.,   208.) 

«  Cf .  Lowell,  Prose  Works,  VI,  166:  "We  know  not  whither  other 
studies  will  lead  us.  .  .  .  We  do  know  to  what  summits  ....  this 
has  led  and  what  the  many-sided  outlook  thence." 


LATIN   AND   GREEK  45 

see  organized  into  a  rational  group  system. ^  But  the  practical 
alternative  which  anti-classical  fanaticism  at  present  offers  is 
formulated  by  one  of  your  own  faculty  with  the  unconscious 
irony  of  italics  as  ''Anything  and  everything  connected  with 
modern  life'' — a  large  order. 2  Professor  King  would  of  course 
know  how  to  apply  this  formula  with  discretion.  But  he  would 
perhaps  be  somewhat  dismayed  to  see  how  it  is  applied  in  the 
short  course  of  the  Cokato  High  School  by  an  enthusiastic  con- 
vertite  who  declares  that  "we  are  doing  some  intensive  work 
in  spots  out  in  this  state  regardless  of  college  requirements  in 
English  or  any  other  requirements  this  side  of  the  moon." 

The  modern  literary  and  linguistic  group  of  studies  presents 
no  problem  in  theory.  There  may  be  some  question  how  much 
Latin  those  students  whose  education  ends  with  the  high  school 
can  afford  to  take.  But  the  more  advanced  collegiate  and  uni- 
versity study  of  English,  modern  languages,  history,  and  phi- 
losophy without  any  preparation  in  classics  is  a  sorry  jest.^ 
The  teachers  themselves  are  aware  of  this  when  not  misled  by 
departmental  rivalries  or  cowed  by  fatalistic  acquiescence  in 
the  low  standards  which  the  spoiled  American  boy  and  the 
indulgent  American  parent  are  forcing  upon  our  schools.* 
They  too  must  be  brought  to  realize  that  the  cause  of  the  higher 
culture  is  one  and  their  lot  is  bound  up  with  ours.^  Our 
colleagues  in  modern  languages  have  had  their  warning  from 
President  Schurman.  They  cannot  join  the  hue  and  cry  against 
dead  classics  and  retain  their  seminars  in  Dante  and  Old  French 
and  their  culture  courses  in  Racine  and  Goethe.  For  the  prac- 
tical  man   Corneille   and   Lessing   are   as   dead   as    Homer   and 

^  Cf.  Fouillee,  op.  cit.,  151-52,  and  Shorey,  in  Proceedings  of  the 
Fifth  Conference  of  the  Associations  of  American  Universities  (February, 
1904.  66-67),  and  in  the  Proceedings  of  the  International  Congress  of  Edu- 
cation   (Chicago,    1893,    138). 

'  Educational  Review,  XXXIII,  469.  For  a  good  criticism  of  this 
ideal,  cf.  T.  E.  Page,  in  Edinburgh  Review,  XXXIV,  144;  Fouillee,  op. 
cit.,    136    ff. 

'  See  Churton  Collins,  "Greek  at  the  Universities,"  Fortnightly  (1905), 
260-71. 

*  Cf.  Grandgent,  "French  as  a  Substitute  for  Latin,"  School  Review, 
XII,  4,62-67;  Warren,  Methods  of  Teaching  Modern  Languages,  114:  "The 
first  duty  of  modern  language  instructors  is  to  preserve  as  far  as  possible 
the  advantages  derived  from  the  study  of  the  displaced  languages,  Greek 
and  Latin."  As  Fouillee  says  (p.  156),  the  alternative  is  either  the 
hotel  waiter's  cheap  polyglotism  or  the  study  of  living  languages  by  the 
critical  methods  applied  to  the  languages  called  dead.  Cf.  Jebb.  op.  cit., 
558.  Lowell,  op.  cit.,  156:  "In  a  way  that  demands  toil  nd  thought 
as   Greek    and  Latin,   and  they  only,   used  to  be  taught." 

'^  Lowell,  op.  cit.,  157, 


45  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

Aristotele.  His  only  use  for  French  is  "to  fight  the  battle  of 
life — ^with  waiters  in  French  restaurants."  Cornell  University, 
possessing  the  finest  Dante  library  in  the  country,  had  not  a 
single  student  of  Dante  in  1904.^  After  Greek,  Latin,  and 
after  Latin,  all  literary,  historical,  and  philological  study  of 
French  and  German.  Convert  your  departments  into  Berlitz 
schools  of  languages.  It  is  that  which  you  are  educating  the 
public  to  demand,  and  that  is  all  your  students  will  be  capable 
of.  They  already  complain  that  anything  older  or  harder  than 
Labische  is  difficult  and  useless.^ 

The  teachers  of  English  may  lay  the  same  warning  to  heart. 
Shakespeare  is  the  belated  bard  of  feudalism.  Milton's  diction 
is  as  obsolete  to  the  readers  of  Mr.  George  Ade  as  his  theology. 
Tennyson  is  a  superannuated  representative  of  the  Mid- Victorian 
compromise.  Literature  dates  from  Robert  Louis  Stevenson; 
and  Mr.  Bernard  Shaw,  Mr.  Wells,  and  Mr.  Chesterton  are  not 
only  clever  fellows  and  shrewd  advertisers,  but  profound  think- 
ers. The  Bible,  too,  is  an  obsolete  and  forgotten  classic.  There 
is  nothing  that  the  unhappy  teachers  of  English  can  presuppose 
today.  They  have  sowed  the  wind  and  are  reaping  the  whirl- 
wind. Here  is  a  letter  recently  addressed  to  the  dramatic  critic 
of  a  great  newspaper: — 

"I  would  like  to  undertake  a  course  of  reading  on  the  literature  of 
the  stage.  .  .  I  don't  want  to  be  directed  to  Shakespeare,  or  the 
Greek  dramatists,  or  to  Bell's  British  theatre  or  to  any  other  compendium 
of  chestnuts  that  a  man  with  a  healthy  interest  in  life  would  rather  saw 
wood  than  read.^  I  love  the  theatre  and  would  like  to  extend  my  knowl- 
edge if  any   of   the   live  stuff  is   in   print." 

There  you  have  the  answer  to  Huxley's  oft-repeated  argument:— 
"If  an  Englishman  cannot  get  literary  culture  out  of  his  Bible,  his 
Shakespeare,  and  his  Milton,  neither  in  my  belief  will  the  pro- 

^  Forman,  op.  cit.,   15. 

^  Whatever  may  be  said  of  the  difficulty  of  Latin  syntax  or  Greek 
irregular  verbs,  it  is  no  paradox  to  maintain  that  the  ancient  classics  are 
more  simple,  sane,  direct,  and  lucid,  and  therefore  not  only  a  better  edu- 
cational instrument  but  easier  than  the  masterpieces  of  modern  literature 
would  be  if  seriously  taught.  Cf.  Gildersleeve,  op  cit.,  73:  Fouillee,  op. 
cit.,  124:  "not  universally  intelligible";  ibid.,  158  ff.  Shelley's  "Pro- 
metheus' is  harder  and  more  confused  than  that  of  Aeschylus,  Brunetiere, 
Question  du  latin,  872:  "Dante  est  trop  subtil,  Shakspeare  est  trop  pro- 
fond,  souvent  aussi  trop  obscur;  Goethe  est  trop  savant,"  etc.  So  Gold- 
win  Smith  apud  Taylor,  355.  Illuminating  in  this  connection  is  Profes- 
sor Canby's  experience  that  the  despised  eighteenth-century  Latinized  Eng- 
lish classics  are  better  for  teaching  than  the  Elizabethans  or  the  Roman- 
tics.    See  Nation   (August  4,    1910),  99- 

» Clearly  a  disciple  of  Spencer,  who  after  reading  six  books  of  the 
Iliad  to  "study  superstitutions"  "felt  that  I  would  rather  give  a  large  sum 
than  read  to  the  end." 


LATIN  AND  GREEK  .        47 

foundest  study  of  Homer  and  Sophocles,  Virgil  and  Horace,  give 
it  to  him."  The  question  is  not  whether  an  EngHshman  can,  but 
whether  the  American  student  will,  if  the  universities  encourage 
the  spirit  of  philistinism  to  create  an  atmosphere  in  which  the 
study  of  Homer  and  Sophocles  cannot  live.^  You  may  perhaps 
reduce  classical  studies  to  the  position  of  Sanskrit  and  Zend  and 
Hebrew.  If  you  do,  we  shall  faithfully  hand  on  the  torch  of 
true  scholarship  to  the  audience  fit  and  few  that  remains,  and 
watch  with  amusement  your  attempts  to  teach  the  history,  phil- 
ology, and  higher  criticism  of  English  literature  in  the  environ- 
ment that  you  have  helped  to  create.^  In  short,  as  we  said  to 
our  scientific  colleagues,  that  the  case  of  the  classics  is  the  case 
of  serious  discipline  in  education,  so  we  warn  the  representatives 
of  the  modern  humanities  that  the  cause  of  all  humane  culture 
and  historic  criticism  is  bound  up  with  the  studies  that  were  the 
first  and  remain  the  highest  humanities. 

There  is  something  to  be  said  for  the  view  that  Tennyson, 
Milton,  Goethe,  Dante,  and  Racine  are  as  obsolete  as  Virgil  and 
Sophocles,  and  that  the  modern  man's  sole  requirements  are  tech- 
nical experts  cheaply  hired,  indexes  to  "hold  the  eel  of  science 
by  the  tail,"  the  command  of  a  "nervous,"  colloquial  .English 
style,  a  "typewriter  girl"  to  correct  his  spelling,  and  a  vaudeville 
to  relax  his  mind.  But  there  is  very  little  to  be  said  for  the 
endeavor  to  rear  a  vast  fabric  of  historic  and  literary  scholarship 
in  our  universities  without  laying  the  indispensable  foundations. 
Our  culture  might  conceivably  forego  the  firsthand  knowledge  of 
the  supreme  literary  masterpieces  of  the  world.  We  might  sit 
down  in  stolid  ignorance  of  the  thousand  years  of  uninterrupted 
civilization  from  Aeschylus  to  Claudian.  We  might  renounce 
the  historical  study  of  the  Middle  Ages.  But  that  would  only 
be  the  beginning  of  our  losses.  The  languages,  the  literatures, 
the  philosophy,  the  whole  higher  spiritual  tradition  of  the  past 
four  hundred  years  are  unintelligible  without  this  key.^  It  is 
impossible  to  explain  this  to  those  who  have  not  already  in  some 
measure,  however  slight,  verified  it  in  their  own  experience.    The 

^Cf.  Pop.  Sci.  Mo.,  XVII,  iso:  "If  I  had  my  way  in  the  halls  of 
education,  I  would  not  only  dismiss  Latin  and  Greek,  but  send  off  pack- 
ing with   them   the  historical  and  comparative  study  of   English  itself." 

*  Cf.  the  wail  of  Gayley,  "The  Collapse  of  Culture,"  in  Idols  of  Edu- 
cation; Barrett  Wendell's  rueful  confessions  in  The  Mystery  of  Education. 

'  Cf.  Brunetiere,  "La  question  du  latin,"  Revue  des  deux  mondes, 
1885,  VI,  862  ff.;  Clapp,  op.  cit.,  97-98;  Shorey,  "Relations  of  Classical 
Literature  to  Other  Branches  of  Learning,"  St.  Louis  Congress  (1904) 
III.  377-85. 


48       .  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

detail  is  too  enormous.  The  books  and  essays  to  which  I  could 
refer  you  only  skim  the  surface  of  the  subject.^  Anything  that 
we  could  add  here  would  be  superfluous  for  those  who  know, 
and  of  those  who  will  not  believe  or  who  cannot  divine  what 
we  are  hinting  at  we  can  only  say  with  Doctor  Johnson,  "Sir, 
their  ignorance  is  so  great  that  I  am  afraid  to  show  them  the 
bottom  of  it."  They  are  not  initiated.  They  do  not  understand 
the  lingua  franca  of  European  culture.  Its  vocabulary,  its  terms 
of  art  and  criticism,  its  terminology  of  science  and  philosophy, 
charged  with  the  cumulative  associations  of  three  thousand  years, 
are  for  them  the  arbitrary  counters  of  a  mechanically  memo- 
rized Volapiik.  The  inspirations,  the  standards  of  taste,  the 
canons  of  criticism,  the  dialetic  of  ideas  of  the  leaders  of  Euro- 
pean civilization  for  the  past  four  centuries  are  non-existent  for 
them.  They  cannot  estimate  the  thought  of  their  own  or  any 
other  generation,  because  they  do  not  know  how  to  distinguish 
its  peculiar  quality  from  the  common  inheritance.  Literature  and 
history  are  to  their  apprehension  all  surface.  The  latent  mean- 
ings, the  second  intentions,  the  allusions  and  the  pre-suppositions 
escape  their  sense.  They  do  not  divine  the  existence  of  the 
deeper  currents. 

So  much  for  the  ideal.  But  will  the  average  graduate  get 
all  this?  No,  but  he  will  get  something,  and  the  total  culture 
of  our  country  will  get  more.  What  will  the  average  school 
boy  get,  or  the  average  business  man  retain,  of  science? 

Once  more,  let  us  compare  either  ideals  with  ideals  or  actuali- 
ties with  actualities.  We  are  not  saying  that  it  is  a  great  thing 
for  our  undergraduates  to  know  a  little  classics.  We  are  say- 
ing that  it  is  a  monstrous  thing  that  they  should  not  know  any.^ 
It  is  deplorable  to  have  been  taught  Latin  badly,  to  have  for- 
gotten how  to  read  Virgil  or  Cicero  with  pleasure,  and  to  visit 
your  pique  in  denunciation  of  the  only  studies  whose  loss  you 
seem  to  regret.  But  to  have  had  no  Latin  at  all  practically  means 
that  you  do  not  know  the  logic  or  understand  the  categories  of 
general  grammar  and  those  forms  of  language  which  are  at  the 

^  Cf.  the  bibliography  in  Shorey,  supra;  Zielinski,  Our  Debt  to  Anti- 
quity; Mahaffy,  "What  Have  the  Greeks  Done  for  Civilization?";  Jebb, 
Essays  and  Addresses,  541-42,  560;  Gildersleeve,  op.  cit.,  23,  44,  60; 
Churton  Collins,  The  Study  of  English  Literature,  (Macmillan,  189 1). 
Lowell,  VI,  166:  "Greek  literature  is  also  the  most  fruitful  comment  on 
our  own";  174:  "the  bees  from  all  climes  still  fetch  honey  from  the 
tiny  garden-plot  of  Theocritus"  (cf.  Kerlin's  Yale  dissertation,  "Theocritus 
in   English  Literature"). 

'  Cf.    Harris,    "A    Brief   for    Latin,"    Educational    Review,    XVII,    3i3' 


LATIN   AND   GREEK  49 

same  time  forms  of  thought;  that  you  do  not  know  and  cannot 
safely  learn  from  a  lexicon  the  essential  and  root  meanings  of 
English  vocables,  and  can  therefore  neither  use  them  with  a  con- 
sciousness of  their  prime  sensuous  force^  nor  guard  yourself 
against  mixed  metaphor; 2  that  you  are  mystified  by  the  varia- 
tions of  meanings  in  like  Latin  derivations  in  Shakespeare,  the 
Romance  languages,  and  modern  English ;  that  you  have  no  his- 
toric feeling  for  the  structure  of  the  period  which  modern  prose 
inherit  from  Isocrates  through  Cicero;  that  the  difficulty  of 
learning  French  or  Italian  is  tripled  for  you,^  and  the  possibil- 
ity of  really  understanding  them  forever  precluded;*  that  you 
have  no  key  to  the  terminology  of  science  and  philosophy,  to  law 
and  international  law  Latin,  and  Latin  maxims,^  druggists' 
Latin,  botanists'  Latin,  physicians'  Latin ;  that  you  cannot  even 
guess  the  meaning  of  the  countless  technical  phrases,  familiar 
quotations,  proverbs,  maxims,  and  compendious  Latin  formulae 
that  are  so  essential  a  part  of  the  dialect  of  educated  men  that 
the  fiercest  adversaries  of  the  classics  besprinkle  their  pages  with 
misprints  of  them;^  that  you  cannot  study  the  early  history 
of  modern  science  and  philosophy,  or  read  their  masterpieces  in 
the  original  texts ;''^  that  Rome  is  as  remote  for  you  as  China; 
that  Virgil,  Horace,  and  Cicero  are  mere  names;  that  French 
literature  is  a  panorama  without  perspective,  a  series  of  unin- 
telligible allusions;^  that  travel  in  Italy  loses  half   its  charm; 

*  Cf.  Pater,  "On  Style,"  Appreciations,  13,  17.  It  is  hardly  necessary 
to  answer  President  Hall's  cavil  that  an  obtrusive  consciousness  and  a 
pedantic  use  of  etymology  may  sometimes  be  harmful. 

'  Gildersleeve,   op.   cit.,   25. 

*  It  is  an  exaggeration  rather  than  a  misrepresentation  when  Mill 
speaks  {op  cit.,  IV,  345)  of  "that  ancient  language  ....  the  posses- 
sion of  which  makes  it  easier  to  learn  four  or  five  of  the  continental  lan- 
guages than  it  is  to  learn  one  of  them  without  it."  On  the  greater  ease 
with  which  classicists  acquire  the  languages  of  India  cf.  Postgate,  in 
Fortnightly,    LXXII,    857. 

*  "Le  latin  c'est  la  raison  du  frangais." — Vinet;  cf.  Gildersleeve,  op. 
cit.,  34. 

^Foster,   School   Rev.    (1909),    377;    Scott,   ibid.,   498-501. 

'  See  the  works  of  President  Stanley  Hall  and  President  Jordan, 
passim;   Fouillee,    op.    cit.,    126;    Gildersleeve,    on    Bigelow,   op.    cit.,   9. 

'  I  should  like  my  aspirant  to  be  able  to  read  a  scientific  treatise  in 
Latin,  French,  or  German,  because  an  enormous  amount  of  anatomical 
knowledge  is  locked  up  in  those  languages." — Huxley,  Technical  Educa- 
tion, 409;  cf.  187.  Huxley  himself  was  not  happy  until  he  got  Greek. 
Half  of  Whewell's  plea  for  the  study  of  the  history  of  science  in  The 
Culture  Demanded  by  Modern  Life  is  concerned  with  antiquity,  and 
many  of   the    authors   mentioned   in   the   other  half  wrote  in   Latin. 

®  Cf.  Ren6  Doumic,  "L'enseignement  du  latin  et  la  litterature  fran- 
Qaise,"  in  Etudes  sur  la  litt,  franc.  I;  Br^al,  "La  tradition  du  latin." 
Revue  des  deux  mondes,  CV,  551   ff. 


so  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

that  you  cannot  decipher  an  inscription  on  the  Appian  way,  in 
the  Catacombs,  in  Westminster  Abbey,  on  Boston  Common,  or 
on  the  terrace  of  Quebec,  or  verify  a  quotation  from  St.  Augus- 
tine, the  Vulgate,  the  Mass,  Bacon,  Descartes,  Grotius'  On  War 
and  Peace,  or  Spinoza's  Ethics,  to  say  nothing  of  consulting  the 
older  documents  of  English  law  and  institutions,  the  sources  of 
the  civil  law,  on  which  the  laws  of  Europe  and  Louisiana  are 
based,  the  Monumenta  Rerum  Germanicarum,  or  Migne's  patro- 
logia,  or  reading  a  bull  of  the  Pope  or  a  telegram  of  the  German 
emperor;  that,  not  to  go  back  to  Milton  and  the  Elizabethans, 
who  are  unintelligible  without  Latin,  you  cannot  make  out  the 
texts  from  which  Addison's  Spectator  discourses,  you  do  not 
know  half  the  time  what  Johnson  and  Boswell  are  talking  about; 
that  Pope  and  all  of  the  characteristic  writers  of  the  so-called 
Golden  Age  are  sealed  books  to  you ;  that  you  are  ill  at  ease  and 
feel  yourself  an  outsider  in  reading  the  correspondence  of 
Tennyson  and  Fitzgerald,  or  that  of  almost  any  educated  Eng- 
lishman of  the  nineteenth  century,  and  even  in  reading  Thack- 
eray's novels;  that  half  of  Charles  Lamb's  puns  lose  their  point; 
and  that  when  Punch  alludes  to  the  pathetic  scene  in  which 
Colonel  Newcome  cries  "absit  omen!"  for  the  last  time,  you 
don't  see  the  joke. 

If  our  scientific  colleagues,  forgetting  outworn  polemics  and 
on  sober  second  thought,  assure  us  that  the  jealous  requirements 
of  their  stern  mistress  demand  this  sacrifice,  we  can  make  no 
reply.  Let  them  deal  with  purely  scientific  education  and  with 
its  symbol,  the  B.S.  degree,  in  their  discretion.  But  let  us  hear 
no  more  of  the  farce  of  a  literary,  a  philosophical,  or  a  historical 
education  that  omits  even  the  elements  of  the  languages  and 
literatures  on  which  all  literary  and  historical  studies  depend  for 
men  of  European  descent.  Our  acquiescence  in  such  a  "collapse 
of  culture"  is  due  to  our  supine  and  fatalistic  acceptance  of  the 
disgracefully  low  standards  which  the  abuse  of  the  elective  sys- 
tem and  the  premature  distraction  of  the  socially  precocious  and 
intellectually  retarded  American  boy  by  the  dissipations  of  mod- 
ern life  and  society  have  imposed  upon  us.  Mill  may  have 
overestimated  the  powers  of  acquisition  of  the  human  mind,  but 
he  was  far  nearer  right  than  we  are,  who  bestow  degrees  on 
students  who  have  merely  deigned  to  listen  to  a  few  chatty  lec- 
tures on  "anything  and  everything  connected  with  modern  life." 

The  talk  of  ten  or  twelve  years'  ineffectual  study  of  Latin 


LATIN   AND   GREEK  51 

and  Greek  is  nonsense  or  misrepresentation.  It  is  an  indictment 
of  human  nature  and  bad  teaching,  not  specially  of  classical 
studies.  Undisciplined  students  will  doubtless  dawdle  over  any- 
thing, from  French  to  mathematics,  so  long  as  teachers  and 
parents  permit  it.  But  in  a  serious  school  one-fourth  of  the 
student's  time  for  four  or  five  years  is  enough  for  the  acquisi- 
tion, together  with  the  power  to  read  Cicero  and  Virgil  with 
pleasure,  of  more  English  than  classmates  who  omit  Latin  will 
probably  learn.  It  is  not  a  formidable  undertaking,  except  for 
students  whose  attention  is  too  dissipated  and  whose  minds  are 
too  flabby  to  master  anything  that  must  be  remembered  beyond 
the  close  of  the  current  term.  There  is  and  always  will  be  ample 
room  for  a  reasonable  amount  of  Latin  in  any  rational  scheme 
of  studies  that  extends  four  or  more  years  beyond  the  graded 
schools. 

Latin  is  a  necessity  in  anything  but  an  elementary  or  purely 
technical  education.  Greek  is  not  in  this  sense  a  necessity.^ 
Neither  is  it  a  scholastic  specialty.  It  is  the  first  of  luxuries,  a 
luxury  which  no  one  proposes  to  prescribe  for  all  collegians,  but 
which  ought  to  be  enjoyed  by  an  increasing  proportion  of  those 
who  are  now  frightened  away  from  it  by  exaggeration  of  its 
difficulty  or  by  utilitarian  objections  that  apply  with  equal  force 
to  the  inferior  substitutes  which  partisan  advisers  recommend  in 
itSi^lace.  The  value  and  the  chaim  of  even  a  little  knowledge  of 
Greek  has  often  been  explained,^  and  has  been  repeatedly  dem- 
onstrated in  the  courses  in  beginning  Greek  offered  by  American 
colleges'  in  the  past  decade.  Students  of  good  but  not  extraordi- 
nary ability  have,  while  keeping  up  their  other  Vork,  read  six 
books  of  the  Anabasis  in  the  first  year  of  study;  have  completed 
in  three  years  the  A.B.  requirements  of  the  University  of  Chi- 
cago, including  eight  books  of  the  Odyssey,  two  Greek  trage- 
dies, and  Plato's  Apology  and  Crito,  and  have  in  the  fourth  year 
of  study  read  the  entire  Republic  of  Plato  with  intelligence  and 

*  I  cannot  pause  to  discuss  the  misconception  of  those  representatives 
of  science  who  argue,  not  quite  seriously  perhaps,  that  if  only  one  ancient 
language  is  to  be  studied  it  should  be  Greek.  This  might  be  true  for  Mars 
or  China.  It  is  plainly  not  true  for  that  Europe  which  was  evolved  from 
the  Roman  empire,  and  which  until  the  second  or  German  Renaissance 
received   the  inspiration   of  Greece   mainly   through   Latin   literature. 

2  See  Jebb,  op.  cit.,  S75-8o;  "A  Popular  Study  of  Greek."  President 
Mackenzie,  in  School  Rev.  (1908),  376,  adds  the  weighty  suggestion  that 
those  "who  do  not  possess  these  weapons  of  a  full  Christian  culture'* 
will  tend  to  read  only  what  is  easy  and  avoid  scholarly  works  that  con- 
tain even  a  few  Greek  words  or  Latin  quotations. 


52  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

delight.  These  facts  and  similar  results  obtained  in  other  uni- 
versities are  verifiable  by  any  unprejudiced  inquirer,  and  they 
make  it  difficult  to  characterize  in  parliamentary  language  the 
persistent  misrepresentation  that  eight  or  ten  or  twelve  years' 
exclusive  study  of  the  classics  yields  no  results  comparable  to 
those  achieved  by  the  normal  student  in  other  studies.  In  the 
light  of  this  experience  no  fair-minded  dean  or  judicious  adviser 
of  students  already  biased  by  unthinking  popular  prejudice  can 
refuse  in  Lowell's  words  to  "give  the  horse  a  chance  at  the 
ancient  springs"  before  concluding  that  he  will  not  drink.^ 


THE  WORTH  OF  ANCIENT  LITERATURE  TO 
THE  MODERN  WORLD  ^ 

That  the  study  of  the  Greek  and  Latin  languages  should  be 
now  disparaged  need  cause  no  surprise,  for  a  reaction  against 
the  undue  predominance  they  enjoyed  in  education  a  century 
ago  was  long  overdue.  What  is  remarkable  is  that  the  disposi- 
tion to  disparage  them  and  exalt  another  class  of  subjects  has 
laid  hold  of  certain  sections  of  the  population  which  were  not 
wont  to  interest  themselves  in  educational  matters,  but  used  to 
take  submissively  whatever  instruction  was  given  them.  It  is  a 
remarkable  fact ;  but  though  remarkable,  it  is  not  hard  to .  ex- 
plain. The  most  striking  feature  in  the  economic  changes  of  the 
last  eighty  years  has  been  the  immense  development  of  industrial 
production  by  the  application  thereto  of  discoveries  in  the  sphere 
of  natural  science.  Employment  has  been  provided  for  an 
enormous  number  of  workers,  and  enormous  fortunes  have  been 
accumulated  by  those  employers  who  had  the  foresight  or  the 
luck  to  embark  capital  in  the  new  forms  of  manufacture.  Thus 
there  has  been  created  in  the  popular  mind  an  association,  now 
pretty  deeply  rooted,  between  the  knowledge  of  applied  science 
and  material  prosperity.  It  is  this  association  of  ideas,  rather 
than  any  pride  in  the  achievements  of  the  human  intellect  by  the 
unveiling  of  the  secrets  of  Nature  and  the  setting  of  her  forces 
at  work  in  the  service  of  man,  that  has  made  a  knowledge  of 

1  Latest  Lit.  Essays,  I,  53. 

2  This  article,  by  Hon.  James  Bryce,  author  of  The  American  Com- 
monwealth and  for  several  years  the  British  Ambassador  at  Washington, 
originally  appeared  in  the  Fortnightly  Review.  107:551-66.  April  1917- 
and  was  reprinted  in  the  Living  Age.  293:522-34.  June  1917*  and  by  the 
General   Education   Board  as   Occasional  Paper   No.   6. 


LATIN   AND   GREEK  53 

physical  science  seem  so  supremely  important  to  large  classes 
that  never  before  thought  about  education  or  tried  to  estimate 
the  respective  value  of  the  various  studies  needed  to  train  the 
intelligence  and  form  the  character. 

To  put  the  point  in  the  crudest  way,  the  average  man  sees, 
or  thinks  he  sees,  that  the  diffusion  of  a  knowledge  of  languages, 
literature,  and  history  does  not  seem  to  promise  an  increase  of 
riches  either  to  the  nation  or  to  the  persons  who  possess  that 
knowledge,  while  he  does  see,  or  thinks  he  sees,  that  from  a 
knowledge  of  mechanics  or  chemistry  or  electricity  such  an  in- 
crease may  be  expected  both  to  the  community  and  to  the  per- 
sons engaged  in  the  industries  dependent  on  those  sciences.  This 
average  man  accordingly  concludes  that  the  former  or  the  literary 
kinds  of  knowledge  have,  both  for  the  individual  and  for  the 
community,  far  less  value  than  have  the  latter,  i.e.,  the  scientific. 

Two  other  arguments  have  weight  with  persons  more  reflec- 
tive than  those  whose  mental  attitude  I  have  been  describing ;  and 
their  force  must  be  admitted.  Languages — not  merely  the  an- 
cient languages,  but  languages  in  generals-have  too  often  been 
badly  taught,  and  the  learning  of  them  has  therefore  been  found 
repulsive  by  many  pupils.  The  results  have  accordingly  been  dis- 
appointing, and  out  of  proportion  to  the  time  and  labour  spent. 
Comparatively  few  of  those  who  have  given  from  six  to  eight 
years  of  their  boyhood  mainly  to  the  study  of  Greek  and  Latin 
retain  a  knowledge  of  either  language  sufficient  to  afford  either 
use  or  pleasure  to  them  through  the  rest  of  life.  Of  the  whole 
number  of  those  who  yearly  graduate  at  Oxford  or  at  Cam- 
bridge, I  doubt  if  a  thirty  years  of  age  15  per  cent  could  read 
at  sight  an  easy  piece  of  Latin,  or  5  per  cent  an  easy  piece  of 
Greek.  As  this  seems  an  obvious  sort  of  test  of  the  effect  of  the 
teaching,  people  come  to  the  conclusion  that  the  time  spent  on 
Greek  and  Latin  was  wasted. 

Let  us  frankly  admit  these  facts.  Let  us  recognize  that  the 
despotism  of  a  purely  grammatical  study  of  the  ancient  lan- 
guages and  authors  needed  to  be  overthrown.  Let  us  also  dis- 
card some  weak  arguments  our  predecessors  have  used,  such  as 
that  no  one  can  write  a  good  English  style  without  knowing 
Latin.  There  are  too  many  cases  to  the  contrary.  Nothing  is 
gained  by  trying  to  defend  an  untenable  position.  We  must  re- 
tire to  the  stronger  lines  of  defence  and  entrench  ourselves  there. 
You  will  also  agree  that  the  time  has  come  when  every  one 


54  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

should  approach  the  subject  not  as  the  advocate  of  a  cause  but 
in  an  impartial  spirit.  We  must  consider  education  as  a  whole, 
rather  than  as  a  crowd  of  diverse  subjects  with  competing  claims. 
What  is  the  chief  aim  of  education?  What  sorts  of  capacities 
and  of  attainments  go  to  make  a  truly  educated  man,  with  keen 
and  flexible  faculties,  ample  store^  of  knowledge,  and  the  power 
of  drawing  pleasure  from  the  exercise  of  his  faculties  in  turn- 
ing to  account  the  knowledge  he  has  accumulated?  How  should 
the  mental  training  fitted  to  produce  such  capacities  begin? 

First  of  all  by  teaching  him  how  to  observe  and  by  making 
him  enjoy  the  habit  of  observation.  The  attention  of  the  child 
should  from  the  earliest  years  be  directed  to  external  nature. 
His  observation  should  be  alert,  and  it  should  be  exact. 

Along  with  this  he  should  learn  how  to  use  language,  to 
know  the  precise  differences  between  the  meanings  of  various 
words  apparently  similar,  to  be  able  to  convey  accurately  what 
he  wishes  to  say.  This  goes  with  the  habit  of  observation,  which 
can  be  made  exact  only  by  the  use  in  description  of  exact  terms. 
In  training  the  child  to  observe  constantly  and  accurately  and 
to  use  language  precisely,  two  things  are  being  given  which  are 
the  foundation  of  mental  vigour — curiosity,  i.e.,  the  desire  to 
know — and  the  habit  of  thinking.  And  in  knowing  how  to  use 
words  one  begins  to  learn — it  is  among  the  most  important  parts 
of  knowledge — how  to  be  the  master  and  not  the  slave  of  words. 
The  difference  between  the  dull  child  and  the  intelligent  child 
appears  from  very  early  years  in  the  power  of  seeing  and  the 
power  of  describing:  and  that  which  at  twelve  years  of  age  seems 
to  be  dullness  is  often  due  merely  to  neglect.  The  child  has  not 
been  encouraged  to  observe  or  to  describe  or  to  reflect. 

Once  the  Love  of  Knowledge  and  the  enjoyment  in  exercis- 
ing the  mind  have  been  formed,  the  first  and  most  critical  stage 
in  education  has  been  successfully  passed.  What  remains  is  to 
supply  the  mind  with  knowledge,  while  further  developing  the 
desire  to  acquire  more  knowledge.  And  here  the  question  arises : 
What  sort  of  knowledge?  The  field  is  infinite,  and  it  expands 
daily.    How  is  a  selection  to  be  made? 

One  may  distinguish  broadly  between  two  classes  of  knowl- 
edge, that  of  the  world  of  nature  and  that  of  the  world  of  man, 
i.e.,  between  external  objects,  inanimate  and  animate,  and  all 
the  products  of  human  thought,  such  as  forms  of  speech,  liter- 
ature, all  that  belongs  to  the  sphere  of  abstract  ideas,  and  the 


LATIN   AND   GREEK  55 

record  of  what  men  have  done  or  said.  The  former  of  these 
constitutes  what  we  call  the  domain  of  physical  science;  the 
latter,  the  domain  of  the  so-called  Humanities.  Every  one  in 
whom  the  passion  of  curiosity  has  been  duly  developed  will  find 
in  either  far  more  things  he  desires  to  know  than  he  will  ever 
be  able  to  know,  and  that  which  may  seem  the  saddest  but  is 
really  the  best  of  it  is  that  the  longer  he  lives,  the  more  will  he 
desire  to  go  on  learning. 

How,  then,  is  the  time  available  for  education  to  be  alloted 
between  these  two  great  departments?  Setting  aside  the  cases 
of  those  very  few  persons  who  show  an  altogether  exceptional 
gift  for  scientific  discovery,  mathematical  or  physical,  on  the  one 
hand,  or  for  literary  creation  on  the  other,  and  passing  by  the 
question  of  the  time  when  special  training  for  a  particular  call- 
ing should  begin,  let  us  think  of  education  as  a  preparation  for 
life  as  a  whole,  so  that  it  may  fit  men  to  draw  from  life  the  most 
it  can  give  for  use  and  for  enjoyment. 

The  more  that  can  be  learnt  in  both  of  these  great  depart- 
ments, the  realm  of  external  nature  and  the  realm  of  man,  so 
much  the  better.  Plenty  of  knowledge  in  both  is  needed  to  pro- 
duce a  capable  and  highly  finished  mind.  Those  who  have  at- 
tained eminence  in  either  have  usually  been,  and  are  to-day,  the 
first  to  recognize  the  value  of  the  other,  because  they  have  come 
to  know  how  full  of  resource  and  delight  all  true  knowledge  is. 
There  are  none  of  us  who  are  here  today  as  students  of  lan- 
guage and  history  that  would  not  gladly  be  far  more  at  home 
than  he  is  in  the  sciences  of  Nature 

To  have  acquired  even  an  elementary  knowledge  of  such 
branches  of  natural  history  as,  for  instance,  geology  or  botany, 
not  only  stimulates  the  powers  of  observation  and  imagination, 
but  adds  immensely  to  the  interest  and  the  value  of  travel  and 
enlarges  the  historian's  field  of  reflection.  So,  too,  we  all  feel 
the  fascination  of  those  researches  into  the  constitution  of  the 
material  universe  which  astronomy  and  stellar  chemistry  are 
prosecuting  within  the  region  of  the  infinitely  vast,  while  they 
are  being  also  prosecuted  on  our  own  planet  in  the  region  of  the 
infinitely  minute.  No  man  can  in  our  days  be  deemed  educated 
who  has  not  some  knowledge  of  the  relation  of  the  sciences  to 
one  another,  and  a  just  conception  of  the  methods  by  which  they 
respectively  advance.  Those  of  us  who  apply  criticism  to  the 
study    of    ancient    texts    or    controverted    historical    documents 


56  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

profit  from  whatever  we  know  about  the  means  whereby  truth 
is  pursued  in  the  realm  of  Nature.  In  these  and  in  many  other 
ways  we  gladly  own  ourselves  the  debtors  of  our  scientific 
brethern,  and  disclaim  any  intention  to  disparage  either  the  edu- 
cational value  or  the  intellectual  pleasure  to  be  derived  from 
their  pursuits.  Between  them  and  us  there  is-,  I  hope,  no  conflict, 
no  controversy.  The  conflict  is  not  between  Letters  and  Science, 
but  between  a  large  and  philosophical  conception  of  the  aims  of 
education  and  that  material,  narrow,  or  even  vulgar  view  which 
looks  only  to  immediate  practical  results  and  confounds  pecun- 
iary with  educational  values. 

We  have  to  remember  that  for  a  nation  even  commercial  suc- 
cess and  the  wealth  it  brings  are,  like  everything  else  in  the  long 
run,  the  result  of  Thought  and  Will.  It  is  by  these  two.  Thought 
and  Will,  that  nations,  like  individuals,  are  great.  We  in  Eng- 
land are  accused,  as  a  nation  and  as  individuals,  of  being  de- 
ficient in  knowledge  and  in  the  passion  for  knowledge.  There 
may  be  some  other  nation  that  surpasses  us  in  the  knowledge  it 
has  accumulated  and  in  the  industry  with  which  it  adds  to  the 
stock  of  its  knowledge.  But  such  a  nation  might  show,  both  in 
literature  and  in  action,  that  it  does  not  always  know  how  to  use 
its  knowledge.  It  might  think  hard,  harder  perhaps  than  we  do, 
but  its  thought  might  want  that  quality  which  gives  the  power 
of  using  knowledge  aright.  Possessing  knowledge,  it  might  lack 
imagination  and  insight  and  sympathy,  and  it  might  therefore  be 
in  danger  of  seeing  and  judging  falsely  and  of  erring  fatally. 
It  would  then  be  in  worse  plight  than  we;  for  these  faults  lie 
deep  down,  whereas  ours  can  be  more  easily  corrected.  We  can 
set  ourselves  to  gain  more  knowledge,  to  set  more  store  by 
knowledge,  to  apply  our  minds  more  strenuously  to  the  prob- 
lems before  us.  The  time  has  come  to  do  these  things,  and  to  do 
them  promptly.  But  the  power  of  seeing  truly,  by  the  help  of 
imagination  and  sympathy,  and  the  power  of  thinking  justly,  we 
may  fairly  claim  to  have  as  a  nation  generally  displayed.  Both 
are  evident  in  our  history,  both  are  visible  in  our  best  men  of  sci- 
ence and  learning,  and  in  our  greatest  creative  minds. 

This  is  not,  I  hope,  a  digression,  for  what  I  desire  to  empha- 
size is  the  need  in  education  of  all  that  makes  for  width  of 
knowledge  and  for  breadth  and  insight  and  balance  in  thinking 
power.  The  best  that  education  can  do  for  a  nation  is  to  de- 
velop   and    strengthen    the    faculty    of    thinking    intensely    and 


LATIN  AND   GREEK.  57 

soundly,  and  to  extend  from  the  few  to  the  many  the  delights 
which  thought  and  knowledge  give,  saving  the  people  from  de- 
generating into  base  and  corrupting  pleasures  by  teaching  them 
to  enjoy  those  which  are  high  and  pure. 

Now  we  may  ask:  What  place  in  education  is  due  to  literary 
and  historical  studies  in  respect  of  the  service  they  render  to  us 
for  practical  life,  for  mental  stimulus  and  training,  and  for  en- 
joyment? 

These  studies  cover  and  bear  upon  the  whole  of  human  life. 
They  are  helpful  for  many  practical  avocations,  indeed  in  a  cer- 
tain sense  for  all  avocations,  because  in  all  we  have  to  deal  with 
other  men;  and  whatever  helps  us  to  understand  men  and  how 
to  handle  them  is  profitable  for  practical  use.  We  all  of  us  set 
out  in  life  to  convince,  or  at  least  to  persuade  (or  some  perhaps 
to  delude)  other  men,  and  none  of  us  can  tell  that  he  may  not 
be  called  upon  to  lead  or  guide  his  fellows. 

Those  students  also  who  explore  organic  tissues  or  experi- 
ment upon  ions  and  electrons  have  to  describe  in  words  and  per- 
suade with  words.  For  dealing  with  men  in  the  various  relations 
of  life,  the  knowledge  of  tissues  and  electrons  does  not  help. 
The  knowledge  of  human  nature  does  help,  and  to  that  knowl- 
edge letters  and  history  contribute.  The  whole  world  of  emo- 
tion— friendship,  love,  all  the  sources  of  enjoyment  except  those 
which  spring  from  the  intellectual  achievements  of  discovery — 
belong  to  the  human  field,  even  when  drawn  from  the  love  of 
nature.  To  understand  sines  and  logarithms,  to  know  how  cells 
unite  into  tissues,  and  of  what  gaseous  elements,  in  what  propor- 
tion, atoms  are  combined  to  form  water — all  these  things  are  the 
foundations  of  branches  of  science,  each  of  which  has  the  utmost 
practical  value.  But  they  need  to  be  known  by  those  only  who 
are  engaged  in  prom.oting  those  sciences  by  research  or  in  deal- 
ing practically  with  their  applications.  One  can  buy  and  use 
common  salt  without  calling  it  chloride  of  sodium.  A  black- 
berry gathered  on  a  hedge  tastes  no  better  to  the  man  who 
knows  that  it  belongs  to  the  extremely  perplexing  genus  Rubtis 
and  is  a  sister  species  to  the  raspberry  and  the  cloudberry, 
and  has  scarcely  even  a  nodding  acquaintance  with  the  bilberry 
and  the  bearberry.  None  of  these  things,  interesting  as  they 
are  to  the  student,  touches  human  life  and  feeling.  Pericles  and 
Julius  Caesar  would  have  been  no  fitter  for  the  work  they  had  to 
do  if  they  had  been  physiologists  or  chemists.    No  one  at  a  su- 


58  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

preme  crisis  in  his  life  can  nerve  himself  to  action,  or  comfort 
himself  under  a  stroke  of  fate,  by  reflecting  that  the  angles  at 
the  base  of  an  isosceles  triangle  are  equal.  It  is  to  poetry  and 
philosophy,  and  to  the  examples  of  conduct  history  supplies,  that 
we  must  go  for  stimulus  or  consolation.  How  thin  and  pale 
would  life  be  without  the  record  of  the  thoughts  and  deeds  of 
those  who  have  gone  before  us !  The  pleasures  of  scientific  dis- 
covery are  intense,  but  they  are  reserved  for  the  few;  the  plea- 
sures which  letters  and  history  bestow  with:  a  lavish  hand  are 
accessible  to  us  all. 

These  considerations  are  obvious  enough,  but  they  are  so 
often  overlooked  that  it  is  permissible  to  refer  to  them  when 
hasty  voices  are  heard  calling  upon  us  to  transform  our  educa- 
tion by  overthrowing  letters  and  arts  and  history  in  order  to 
make  way  for  hydrocarbons  and  the  anatomy  of  the  Cephalopoda. 
The  substitution  in  our  secondary  schools  of  the  often  unintelli- 
gent and  mechanically  taught  study  of  details  in  such  subjects 
has  already  gone  far,  perhaps  too  far  for  the  mental  width  and 
flexibility  of  the  next  generation. 

If,  then,  we  conclude  that  the  human  subjects  are  an  essential 
part,  and  for  most  persons  the  most  essential  part,  of  education, 
what  place  among  these  subjects  is  to  be  assigned  to  the  study  of 
the  ancient  classics,  or,  as  I  should  prefer  to  say,  to  the  study  of 
the  ancient  world?  This  question  is  usually  discussed  as  if  the 
forms  of  speech  only  were  concerned.  People  complain  that  too 
much  is  made  of  the  languages,  and  discredit  their  study,  calling 
thetn  "dead  languages,"  and  asking  of  what  use  can  be  the  gram- 
mar and  vocabulary  of  a  tongue  no  longer  spoken  among  men. 

But  what  we  are  really  thinking  of  when  we  talk  of  the  an- 
cient classics  is  something  far  above  grammar  and  the  study  of 
words,  far  above  even  inquiries  so  illuminative  as  those  which 
belong  to  Comparative  Philology.  It  is  the  ancient  world  as  a 
whole;  not  the  languages  merely,  but  the  writings;  not  their 
texts  and  style  merely,  but  all  that  the  books  contain  or  suggest. 

This  mention  of  the  books,  however,  raises  a  preliminary 
question  which  needs  a  short  consideration.  Is  it  necessary  to 
learn  Greek  and  Latin  in  order  to  appreciate  the  ancient  authors 
and  profit  by  their  writings?  What  is  the  value  of  translations? 
Can  they  give  us,  if  not  all  that  the  originals  give,  yet  so  large  a 
part  as  to  make  the  superior  results  attainable  from  the  originals 
not  worth  the  time  and  trouble  spent  in  learning  the  languages? 


LATIN   AND   GREEK  59 

Much  of  the  charm  of  style  must,  of  course,  be  lost.  But  is  that 
charm  so  great  as  to  warrant  the  expenditure  of  half  or  more 
out  of  three  or  four  years  of  a  boy's  life? 

This  question  is  entangled  with  another,  viz.,  that  of  the 
value,  as  a  training  in  thought  and  in  the  power  of  expression, 
which  the  mastery  of  another  language  than  one's  own  supplies. 
I  will  not,  however,  stop  to  discuss  this  point,  content  to  remark 
that  all  experienced  teachers  recognize  the  value  referred  to,  and 
hold  it  to  be  greater  when  the  other  language  mastered  is  an  in- 
flected language  with  a  structure  and  syntax  unlike  those  of  mod- 
ern forms  of  speech,  such  as  Latin  and  Greek,  and  such  as  Ice- 
landic, together  with  some  of  the  Slavonic  languages,  almost 
alone  among  modern  civilized  languages,  possess.  Let  us  re- 
turn to  the  question  of  the  worth  of  translations.  It  is  a  difficult 
question,  because  neither  those  who  know  the  originals  nor  those 
who  do  not  are  perfectly  qualified  judges.  The  former,  when 
they  read  their  favourite  author  in  a  translation,  miss  so  much 
of  the  old  charm  that  they  may  underestimate  its  worth  to  the 
English  reader.  The  latter,  knowing  the  translation  only,  can- 
not tell  how  much  better  the  original  may  be.  It  is  those  who, 
having  read  an  author  in  a  translation,  afterwards  learn  Greek 
(or  Latin)  and  read  him  in  the  original,  that  are  perhaps  best 
entitled  to  offer  a  sound  opinion. 

Prose  writers,  of  course,  suffer  least  by  being  translated. 
Polybius  and  Procopius,  Quintus  Curtius,  and  Ammianus  Mar- 
cellinus  can  give  us  their  facts,  Epictetus  and  the  Emperor  Mar- 
cus their  precepts  and  reflections,  almost  as  well  in  our  tongue  as 
in  their  own.  Most  of  us  find  the  New  Testament  more  impres- 
sive in  English,  which  was  at  its  best  in  the  early  seventeenth 
century,  than  in  Hellenistic  Greek,  which  had  declined  so  far  in 
the  first  and  second  centuries  as  to  be  distasteful  to  a  modem 
reader  who  is  familiar  with  the  Attic  writers.  The  associations 
of  childhood  have  also  had  their  influence  in  making  us  feel  the 
solemnity  and  dignity  of  the  English  version.  Even  among 
writers  of  prose  there  are  some  whose  full  grace  or  force  can- 
not be  conveyed  by  the  best  translation.  Plato  and  Tacitus  are 
examples,  and  so,  among  moderns,  is  Cervantes,  some  of  whose 
delicate  humour  evaporates  (so  to  speak)  when  the  ironical 
stateliness  of  his  Castilian  has  to  be  rendered  in  another  tongue. 
The  poets,  of  course,  suffer  far  more,  but  in  very  unequal  degree. 
Lucan  or  Claudian,  not  to  speak  of  Apollonius  Rhodius,  might 


6o  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

be  well  rendered  by  any  master  of  poetical  rhetoric  such  as  Dry- 
den  or  Byron.  But  the  earlier  bards,  and  especially  Pindar  and 
Virgil,  Sophocles,  and  Theocritus,  are  untranslatable.  If  one 
wants  to  realize  how  great  can  be  the  loss,  think  of  the  version 
Catullus  produced  of  Sappho's  ode  that  begins  ^diVerai  fiol 
xelvo  1(70  Oeoioiv,  The  translator  is  a  great  poet  and  he  uses  the 
same  metre,  but  how  low  in  the  Latin  version  do  the  fire  and 
passion  of  the  original  burn !  In  the  greatest  of  the  ancients  the 
sense  is  so  inwoven  with  the  words  and  the  metre  with  both  that 
with  the  two  last  elements  changed  the  charm  vanishes.  What- 
ever admiration  we  may  give  to  some  of  the  verse  renderings  of 
Homer  and  to  some  of  those  admirable  prose  renderings  which 
our  own  time  and  country  have  produced,  one  has  to  say  of  them 
all  much  what  Bentley  said  to  Pope,  "A  very  pretty  poem,  but 
you  must  not  call  it  Homer."  The  want,  in  English,  of  any 
metre  like  the  Greek  hexameter  is  alone  fatal. 

If  we  are  asked  to  formulate  a  conclusion  on  this  matter, 
shall  we  not  say  that  whoever  wishes  to  draw  from  the  great 
ancients  the  best  they  have  to  give  must  begin  by  acquiring  a 
working  acquaintance  with,  though  not  necessarily  a  complete 
grammatical  mastery  of,  the  languages  in  which  they  wrote? 
Those  who  cannot  find  time  to  do  this  will  have  recourse  to 
such  translations,  now  readily  obtainable,  as  convey  accurately 
the  substance  of  the  classical  writers.  Style  and  the  more  subtle 
refinements  of  expression  will  be  lost,  but  the  facts,  and  great 
part  of  the  thoughts,  will  remain.  The  facts  and  the  thoughts 
are  well  worth  having.  But  that  real  value  and  that  full  delight 
which,  as  I  shall  try  to  indicate,  the  best  ancient  authors  can  be 
made  to  yield  to  us  can  be  gained  only  by  reading  them  in  the 
very  words  they  used. 

This  would  be  the  place  for  an  examination  of  the  claims  of 
modern  languages.  Both  the  practical  utility  of  these  languages, 
and  especially  of  Spanish,  hitherto  far  too  much  neglected,  and 
their  value  as  gateways  to  noble  literatures,  are  too  plain  to  need 
discussion.  The  question  for  us  here  to-day  is  this:  Are  these 
values  such  as  to  enable  us  to  dispense  with  the  study  of  the 
ancient  world?  I  venture  to  believe  that  they  do  not,  and  shall 
try  in  the  concluding  part  of  this  address  to  show  why  that 
study  is  still  an  essential  part  of  a  complete  education. 

But  before  entering  on  the  claims  of  the  classics,  a  word  must 


LATIN    AND   GREEK  6i 

be  said  on  a  practical  aspect  of  the  matter  as  it  affects  the  cur- 
ricula of  schools  and  universities.  I  do  not  contend  that  the 
study  of  the  ancients  is  to  be  imposed  on  all,  or  even  on  the 
bulk,  of  those  who  remain  at  school  till  eighteen,  or  on  most  of 
those  v^ho  enter  a  university.  It  is  generally  admitted  that  at 
the  universities  the  present  system  cannot  be  maintained.  Even 
of  those  who  enter  Oxford  or  Cambridge,  many  have  not  the 
capacity  or  the  taste  to  make  it  worth  while  for  them  to  devote 
much  time  there  to  Greek  and  Latin.  The  real  practical  prob-  A 
lem  for  all  our  universities  is  this :  How  are  we  to  find  means 
by  which  the  study,  while  dropped  for  those  who  will  never 
make  much  of  it,  may  be  retained,  and  forever  securely  main- 
tained, for  that  percentage  of  our  youth,  be  it  20  or  30  per  cent 
or  be  it  more,  who  will  draw  sufficient  mental  nourishment  and 
stimulus  from  the  study  to  make  it  an  effective  factor  in  their 
intellectual  growth  and  an  unceasing  spring  of  enjoyment 
through  the  rest  of  life?  This  part  of  our  youth  has  an  im- 
portance for  the  nation  not  to  be  measured  by  its  numbers.  It 
is  on  the  best  minds  that  the  strength  of  a  nation  depends,  and 
more  than  half  of  these  will  find  their  proper  province  in  letters 
and  history.  It  is  by  the  best  minds  that  nations  win  and  retain 
leadership.  No  pains  can  be  too  great  that  are  spent  on 
developing  such  minds  to  the  finest  point  of  efficiency. 

We  shall  effect  a  saving  if  we  drop  that  study  of  the  ancient 
languages  in  the  case  of  those  who,  after  a  trial,  show  no 
aptitude  for  them.  But  means  must  be  devised  whereby  that 
study  shall,  while  rnade  more  profitable  through  better  methods, 
be  placed  in  a  position  of  such  honour  and  importance  as  will 
secure  its  being  prosecuted  by  those  who  are  capable  of  receiving 
from  it  the  benefits  it  is  fitted  to  confer. 

For  the  schools  the  problem  is  how  to  discover  among  the 
boys  and  girls  those  who  have  the  kind  of  gift  which  makes  it 
worth  while  to  take  them  out  of  the  mass  and  give  them  due 
facilities  for  pursuing  these  studies  at  the  higher  secondary 
schools,  so  that  they  may  proceed  thence  to  the  universities 
and  further  prosecute  them  there.  Many  of  you,  as  teachers, 
know  better  than  I  how  this  problem  may  be  solved.  Solved  it 
must  be,  if  the  whole  community  is  not  to  lose  the  benefit  of 
our  system  of  graded  schools. 

Returning  to  the  question  of  what  benefits  we  receive  from 


62  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

the  study  of  the  ancient  world  as  it  speaks  to  :is  through  its 
great  writers,  I  will  venture  to  classify  those  benefits  under  four 
heads. 

I.  Greece  and  Rome  are  the  well-springs  of  the  intellectual 
life  of  all  civilized  modern  peoples.  From  then  descent  to  us 
poetry  and  philosophy,  oratory,  and  history,  sculpture  and 
architecture,  even  (through  East  Roman  or  so-called  "Byzantine" 
patterns)  painting.  Geometry,  and  the  rudiments  of  the  sciences 
of  observation,  grammar,  logic,  politics,  law,  almost  everything 
in  the  sphere  of  the  humanistic  subjects,  except  religion  and 
poetry  inspired  by  religion,  are  part  of  their  heritage.  One 
cannot  explore  the  first  beginnings  of  any  of  these  sciences  and 
arts  without  tracing  it  back  either  to  a  Greek  or  to  a  Roman 
source.  All  the  forms  poetical  literature  has  taken,  the  epic,  the 
lyric,  the  dramatic,  the  pastoral,  the  didactic,  the  satiric,  the 
epigrammatic,  were  of  their  inventing;  and  in  all  they  have 
produced  examples  of  excellence  scarcely  ever  surpassed,  and  fit 
to  be  still  admired  and  followed  by  whoever  seeks. 

To  the  ancients,  and  especially  to  the  poets,  artists,  and  philos- 
ophers, every  mediaeval  writer  and  thinker  owed  all  he  knew, 
and  from  their  lamps  kindled  his  own.  We  moderns  have 
received  the  teaching  and  the  Stimulus  more  largely  in  an  indirect 
way  through  our  mediaeval  and  older  modern  predecessors,  but 
the  ultimate  source  is  the  same.  Whoever  will  understand  the 
forms  which  literature  took  when  thought  and  feeling  first  began 
to  enjoy  their  own  expression  with  force  and  grace,  appreciating 
the  beauty  and  the  music  words  may  have,  will  recur  to  the 
poetry  of  the  Greeks  as  that  in  which  this  phenomenon — the 
truest  harbinger  of  civilisation — dawned  upon  mankind.  The 
influences  of  the  epic  in  the  Homeric  age,  of  the  lyric  in  the 
great  days  that  begin  from  Archilochus,  of  the  drama  from 
Aeschylus  onwards — these  are  still  living  influences,  this  is  a 
fountain  that  flows  to-day  for  those  who  will  draw  near  to 
quaff  its  crystal  waters.  In  some  instances  the  theme  itself  has 
survived,  taking  new  shapes  in  the  succession  of  the  ages.  One 
of  such  instances  may  be  worth  citing.  The  no1)lest  part  of  the 
greatest  poem  of  the  Roman  world  is  the  sixth  book  of  the 
Aeneid  which  describes  the  descent  of  the  Trojan  hero  to  the 
nether  world.  It  was  directly  suggested  to  Virgil  by  the  eleventh 
book  of  the  Odyssey,  called  by  the  Greeks  the  Nekuia,  in  which 
Odysseus  seeks  out  the  long-dead  prophet  Tiresias  to  learn  from 


LATIN   AND   GREEK  63 

him  how  he  shall  contrive  his  return  to  his  home  in  Ithaca. 
The  noblest  poem  of  the  Middle  Ages,  one  of  the  highest  efforts 
of  human  genius,  is  that  which  Dante  describes  his  own  journey 
down  through  Hell  and  up  through  Purgatory  and  Paradise  till 
at  last  he  approaches  the  region  where  the  direct  vision  of  God 
is  vouchsafed  to  the  ever  blessed  saints.  The  idea  and  many  of 
the  details  of  the  Divina  Commedia  were  suggested  to  Dante 
by  the  sixth  Aeneid}  The  Florentine  poet  who  addresses  Virgil 
as  his  father  is  thus  himself  the  grandchild  of  Homer,  though 
no  line  of  Greek  was  ever  read  by  him.  In  each  of  these  three 
Nekuiai  the  motive  and  occasion  for  the  journey  is  the  same. 
Something  is  to  be  learnt  in  the  world  of  spirits  which  the 
world  of  the  living  cannot  give.  In  the  first  it  is  to  be  learnt 
by  a  single  hero  for  his  own  personal  ends.  In  the  second  Aeneas 
is  the  representative  of  the  coming  Rome,  its  achievements  and 
its  spirit.  In  the  third  the  lesson  is  to  be  taught  to  the  human 
soul,  and  the  message  is  one  to  all  mankind.  The  scene  widens 
at  each  stage,  and  the  vision  expands.  The  historical  import  of 
the  second  vision  passes  under  the  light  of  a  new  religion  into 
a  revelation  of  the  meaning  and  purpose  of  the  universe.  How 
typical  is  each  of  its  own  time  and  of  the  upward  march  of 
human  imagination!  Odysseus  crosses  the  deep  stream  of 
gently-flowing  Ocean  past  a  Kimmerian  land,  always  shadowed 
by  clouds  and  mists,  to  the  dwelling  of  the  dead,  and  finds  their 
pale  ghosts,  unsubstantial  images  of  their  former  selves,  knowing 
nothing  of  the  Present,  but  with  the  useless  gift  of  foresight, 
saddened  by  the  recollection  of  the  life  they  had  once  in  the 
upper  air — a  hopeless  sadness  that  would  be  intense  were  their 
feeble  souls  capable  of  anything  intense.  The  weird  mystery  of 
this  home  of  the  departed  is  heightened  by  the  vagueness  with 
which  everything  is  told.  That  which  is  real  is  the  dimness, 
the  atmosphere  of  gloom,  a  darkness  visible  which  enshrouds 
the  dwellers  and  their  dwelling-place. 

The  Hades  of  Virgil  is  more  varied  and  more  majestic.  In 
it  the  monstrous  figures  of  Hellenic  mythology  are  mingled  with 
personifications    of   human   passions.     We   find   ourselves   in   a 

*  It  is  perhaps  not  too  fanciful  to  suggest  that  the  part  played  by  Circe 
in  the  Odyssey  suggests  that  played  by  the  Cumaean  Sibyl  in  the  Aeneid 
and  the  latter  the  appearance  of  his  Guide  to  Dante.  So  the  line  of  hapless 
heroines  whom  Odysseus  sees  (Book  xi.  11.  225-332)  reappears  with  vari- 
ations in  Aeneid  vi.  445,  introducing  the  touching  episode  of  the  address 
of  Aeneas  to  Dido;  and  among  the  sorrowful  figures  whom  Dante  meets 
none  are  touched  more  tenderly  than  Francesca  in  the  Inferno  and  la 
Pia  in  the  Purgatorio. 


64  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

world  created  by  philosophic  thought,  far  removed  from  the 
childlike  simplicity  of  the  Odyssey.  There  are  Elysian  fields  of 
peace,  with  a  sun  and  stars  of  their  own,  yet  melancholy  broods 
over  the  scene,  the  soft  melancholy  of  a  late  summer  evening, 
when  colours  are  fading  from  the  landscape. 

In  the  Divine  Comedy  we  return  to  something  between  the 
primitive  realism  of  early  Greece  and  the  allegorical  philosophy 
of  Virgil.  Dante  is  quite  as  realistic  as  Homer,  but  far  more 
vivid;  he  is  as  solemn  as  Vigil,  but  more  sublime.  The  unseen 
world  becomes  as  actual  as  the  world  above.  Everything  stands 
out  sharp  and  clear.  The  Spirits  are  keenly  interested  in  the 
Past  and  the  Future,  though  knowing  nothing  (just  as  in 
Homer)  of  the  Present.  Ghosts  though  they  may  be,  they  are 
instinct  with  life  and  passion,  till  a  region  is  reached  in  highest 
heaven  of  which  neither  Homer  nor  Virgil  ever  dreamed, 
because  its  glory  and  its  joys  transcend  all  human  experience. 
Three  phases  of  thought  and  emotion,  three  views  of  life  and 
what  is  beyond  life,  of  the  Universe  and  the  laws  and  powers 
that  rule  it,  find  their  most  concentrated  poetical  expression  in 
these  three  visions  of  that  Place  of  Spirits,  which  has  always 
been  present  to  the  thoughts  of  mankind  as  the  undiscovered 
background  to  their  little  life  beneath  the  sun. 

II.  Secondly.  Ancient  classical  literature  is  the  common 
possession,  and,  with  the  exception  of  the  Bible  and  a  very  few 
mediaeval  writings,  the  only  common  possession,  of  all  civilised 
peoples.  Every  well-educated  man  in  every  educated  country 
is  expected  to  have  some  knowledge  of  it,  to  have  read  the 
greatest  books,  to  remember  the  leading  characters,  to  have 
imbibed  the  fundamental  ideas.  It  is  the  one  ground  on  which 
they  all  meet.  It  is  therefore  a  living  tie  between  the  great 
modern  nations.  However  little  they  may  know  of  one  another's 
literature,  they  find  this  field  equally  open  to  them  all,  and 
equally  familiar.  Down  till  the  seventeenth  century  the  learned 
all  over  Europe  used  Latin  as  their  means  of  communication 
and  the  vehicle  of  expression  for  their  more  serious  work  in 
prose.  Ever  since  the  Renaissance  gave  Greek  literature  back 
to  Western  and  Central  Europe  and  turned  the  critical  labours 
of  scholars  upon  ancient  writings,  scholars  in  all  countries  have 
vied  with  one  another  in  the  purifying  of  the  texts  and  elucida- 
tion of  the  meaning  of  those  writings;  and  this  work  has  given 
occasion  for  constant  intercourse  by  visits  and  correspondence 


LATIN   AND   GREEK  65 

between  the  learned  men  of  England,  Scotland,  France,  Ger- 
many, Italy,  Holland,  Denmark.  Thus  was  maintained,  even 
after  the  great  ecclesiastical  schism  of  the  sixteenth  century, 
the  notion  of  an  international  polity  of  thought,  a  Republic  of 
Letters.  The  sense  that  all  were  working  together  for  a  com- 
mon purpose  has  been  down  to  our  own  days,  despite  interna- 
tional jealousies  (now,  alas!  more  bitter  than  ever  before),  a 
bond  of  sympathy  and  union. 

III.  Thirdly.  Ancient  History  is  the  key  to  all  history,  not 
to  political  history  only,  but  to  the  record  also  of  the  changing 
thoughts  and  beliefs  of  races  and  peoples.  Before  the  sixth 
century  b.  c.  we  have  only  patriarchal  or  military  monarchies. 
It  is  with  the  Greek  cities  that  political  institutions  begin,  that 
different  forms  of  government  take  shape,  that  the  conception 
of  responsible  citizenship  strikes  root,  that  both  ideas  and 
institutions  germinate  and  blossom  and  ripen  and  decay,  the 
institutions  overthrown  by  intestine  seditions,  and  finally  by 
external  power,  the  ideas  unable  to  maintain  themselves  against 
material  forces,  and  at  last  dying  out  because  the  very  discussion 
of  them,  much  less  their  realization,  seemed  hopeless,  and  it  only 
remained  to  turn  to  metaphysical  speculation  and  ethical  dis- 
course. But  the  ideas  and  the  practice,  during  the  too  brief 
centuries  of  freedom,  had  found  their  record  in  histories  and 
speeches  and  treaties.  These  ideas  bided  their  time.  These 
give  enlightenment  to-day,  for  though  environments  change, 
human  nature  persists.  That  which  makes  Greek  history  so 
specially  instructive  and  gives  it  a  peculiar  charm  is  that  it  sets 
before  us  a  host  of  striking  characters  in  the  fields  of  thought 
and  imaginative  creation  as  well  as  in  the  field  of  political  strife, 
the  abstract  and  the  concrete  always  in  the  closest  touch  with 
one  another.  The  poets  and  the  philosophers  are,  so  to  speak, 
a  sort  of  chorus  to  the  action  carried  forward  on  the  stage  by 
soldiers,  statesmen,  and  orators.  In  no  other  history  is  the 
contact  and  interworking  of  all  these  types  and  forces  made 
so  manifest.  We  see  and  understand  each  through  the  other, 
and  obtain  a  perfect  picture  of  the  whole. 

So  also  are  the  annals  of  the  Imperial  City  a  key  to  a  history, 
but  in  a  different  sense.  The  tale  of  the  doings  of  the  Roman 
people  is  less  rich  in  ideas,  but  it  is  of  even  higher  import  in  its 
influence  on  all  that  came  after  it.  As  Thought  and  Imagination 
are  the  notes  of  the  Hellenic  mind,  so  Will  and  Force  are  the 


66  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

notes  of  the  Roman — Force  with  the  conceptions  of  Order,  Law, 
and  System.  It*  has  a  more  persistent  and  insistent  volition,  a 
greater  gift  for  organization.  Roman  institutions  are  almost  as 
fertile  by  their  example  as  the  Greek  mind  was  by  its  ideas. 
Complicated  and  cumbrous  as  was  the  constitution  of  the  Roman 
Republic,  we  see  in  it  almost  as  wonderful  a  product  of  fresh 
contrivances  devised  from  one  age  to  another  to  meet  fresh 
exigencies  as  in  the  English  Constitution  itself,  and  it  deserves 
a  scarcely  less  attentive  study.  But  high  as  is  this  permanent 
value  for  the  student  of  politics,  still  higher  is  its  importance 
as  the  starting-point  for  the  history  of  the  European  nations, 
some  of  whom  it  had  ruled,  all  of  whom  it  taught.  It  created 
a  body  of  law  and  schemes  of  provincial  and  municipal  adminis- 
tration, which,  modified  as  all  these  have  been  by  mediaeval 
feudalism,  became  the  basis  of  the  governmental  systems  of 
modern  States.  Still  more  distinctly  was  the  Roman  Empire 
in  West  and  East  the  foundation  on  which  the  vast  fabric  of 
church  government  has  been  raised.  As  the  religious  beliefs 
and  superstitions  and  usages .  of  the  Romano-Hellenic  world 
affected  early  Christianity,  so  did  the  organization  of  the  Empire 
serve  as  a  model  for  the  organization  of  the  Christian  Church. 
Without  a  knowledge  of  these  things  it  is  impossible  to  under- 
stand ecclesiastical  history.  The  riddles  of  the  Middle  Ages — 
and  they  are  many — would  be  insoluble  without  a  reference  back 
to  what  went  before;  nor  need  I  remind  you  how  much  of  the 
Middle  Ages  has  lasted  down  into  our  own  days,  nor  how  in  the 
fifteenth  century  the  long-silent  voices  of  ancient  Greece  awoke 
to  vivify  and  refine  the  thought  and  the  imagination  of  Europe. 
IV.  Lastly,  the  ancient  writers  set  before' us  a  world  super- 
ficially most  unlike  our  own.  All  the  appliances,  all  the  para- 
phernalia of  civilisation  were  different.  Most  of  those  appliances 
were  indeed  wanting.  The  Athenians  in  their  brightest  days  had 
few  luxuries  and  not  many  comforts.  They  knew  scarcely 
anything  about  the  forces  of  Nature,  and  still  less  did  they 
know  how  to  turn  them  to  the  service  of  man.  Their  world  was 
small.  The  chariot  of  their  sun  took  less  than  five  hours  to 
traverse  the  space  between  the  Euphrates  and  the  Millars  of 
Hercules,  and  many  parts  within  that  space  were  unknown  to 
them.  Civilised  indeed  they  were,  but  theirs  was  a  civilisation 
which  consisted  not  in  things  material,  but  in  art  and  the  love 
of  beauty,   in  poetry  and  the  love  of  poetry,   in  music  and  a 


LATIN   AND   GREEK  67 

sensibility  to  music,  in  a  profusion  of  intelligence  active,  versatile, 
refined,  expressing  its  thoughts  through  wonderfully  rich  and 
flexible  forms  of  speech.  There  was  little  wealth  and  little 
poverty,  some  inequality  in  rank  but  not  much  in  social  relations : 
women  were  secluded,  slavery  was  the  basis  of  industry.  Yet 
it  was  a  complete  and  perfect  world,  perfect  in  almost  every- 
thing except  religion  and  those  new  virtues,  as  one  may  call 
them,  which  the  Gospel  has  brought  in  its  train.  Human  nature 
was,  in  essentials,  what  it  is  now.  But  it  was  a  youthful  world, 
and  human  nature  appeared  in  its  simplest  guise.  Nature  was 
all  alive  to  it.  It  looked  out  on  everything  around  it  with  the 
fresh  curiosity  of  wide-open  youthful  eyes.  As  the  Egyptian 
priest  said  to  Solon,  with  a  deeper  wisdom  than  perhaps  he 
knew,  the  Greeks  were  children.  Like  children,  they  saw  things 
together  which  moderns  have  learnt  to  distinguish  and  to  keep 
apart.  Their  speculations  on  ethics  and  politics  were  blent  with 
guesses  at  the  phenomena  of  external  nature,  religion  was  blent 
with  mythology,  poetry  with  history,  gods  with  men.  It  is 
good  for  us,  in  the  midst  of  our  complex  and  artificial  civilisa- 
tion, good  for  us  in  whom  the  sense  of  beauty  is  less  spontaneous, 
whose  creative  power  is  clogged  by  a  weariness  of  the  past,  and 
who  are  haunted  by  doubts  of  all  that  cannot  be  established  by 
the  methods  of  science,  to  turn  back  to  these  simpler  days,  and 
see  things  again  in  their  simplicity,  as  the  men  of  Athens  saw 
them  in  the  clear  light  of  a  Mediterranean  dawn.  The  dawn 
is  the  loveliest  moment  of  the  day,  and  there  are  truths  best 
seen   in   the   innocent   freshness   of   morning. 

The  poets  of  the  early  world  did  not  need  to  strain  after 
effect.  They  spoke  with  that  directness  which  makes  words  go, 
like  arrows,  straight  to  their  mark.  Strength  came  to  them 
without  effort.  As  no  prose  narratives  have  ever  surpassed  the 
description  in  the  seventh  book  of  Thucydides  of  the  Athenian 
army's  retreat  from  Syracuse,  so  no  narratives,  in  prose  or 
poetry,  except  perhaps  some  few  in  the  earlier  books  of  the  Old 
Testament  and  in  the  Icelandic  sagas,  have  ever  equalled  the 
telling  of  the  tales  contained  in  the  Odyssey,  such  as  that  in 
which  Eumaeus  recounts  to  Odysseus  how  he  was  brought  in 
childhood  from  his  native  home  to  Ithaca.  Even  among  the  later 
classic  poets  this  gift  of  directness  remains.  It  is  one  of  the 
glories  of  Lucretius.  What  can  be  more  impressive  in  simple 
force  than  the  lament  of  Moschus  over  Bion,  or  the  lines  of 


68  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

Catullus  that  begin  with  "Vivamus,  mea  Lesbia,  atque  amemus"? 
However,  I  return  to  that  which  the  study  of  the  ancient 
world  can  do  for  our  comprehension  of  the  progress  and  life 
of  mankind  as  a  whole.  It  is  the  constant  aim,  not  only  of  the 
historian,  but  of  whosoever  desires  to  have  a  just  view  of  that 
progress,  distinguishing  the  essential  and  permanent  from  the 
accidental  and  transitory,  and  noting  the  great  undercurrents 
of  which  events  are  only  the  results  and  symptoms — it  is  and 
must  be  his  aim  to  place  before  his  eyes  pictures  of  what  man 
was  at  various  points  in  his  onward  march,  seeing  not  only  how 
institutions  and  beliefs  grow  and  decay,  but  also  how  tastes  and 
gifts,  aptitudes  and  virtues,  rise  and  decline  and  rise  again  in 
new  shapes,  just  as  the  aspects  of  a  landscape  change  when 
clouds  flit  over  it,  or  when  shafts  of  light  strike  it  from  east  or 
south  or  west.  For  this  purpose  it  is  of  the  utmost  value  to 
know  human  societies  in  the  forms  they  took  when  civilised 
society  first  came  into  being.  How  fruitful  for  such  a  study 
are  the  successive  epochs  of  the  Greco-Roman  world !  Take, 
for  example,  the  latest  age  of  the  Roman  Republic  as  we  see 
it  depicted  by  Sallust  and  Catullus,  Appian  and  Plutarch, 
and  best  of  all  in  Cicero's  speeches  and  letters.  The  Republic 
was  tottering  to  its  fall :  dangers  were  gathering  from  within 
and  without.  Caesar's  conquests  were  bringing  Gaul  under 
Roman  dominion  and  Britain  into  the  knowledge  of  civilised 
men.  Lucretius  was  presenting  the  doctrines  of  Epicurus  as  a 
remedy  against  superstition :  Cicero  and  his  friends  were  trying, 
like  Boethius  five  centuries  later,  to  find  consolations  in  phil- 
osophy. But  no  one  could  divine  the  future,  no  one  foresaw 
the  Empire  or  the  advent  of  a  new  religion. 

Or  take  the  epoch  of  Periclean  Athens.  The  memory  of 
Salamis,  where  Aeschylus  and  his  brother  had  fought,  was  still 
fresh.  Thucydides,  not  yet  a  historian,  was  sailing  to  and  fro 
to  his  gold-mines  in  Thrace  opposite  Thasos.  Herodotus  was 
reciting  the  tale  of  his  travels  in  the  cities.  Socrates  was 
beginning  his  quest  for  wisdom  by  interrogating  men  in  the 
market-place.  Athenian  fleets  held  the  sea,  but  the  Pelopon- 
nesians  were  already  devastating  Attica.  Phidias  and  his  pupils 
were  finishing  the  frieze  of  the  Parthenon,  Cleon  was  rising 
into  note  by  the  vehemence  of  his  harangues.  The  same  crowd 
that  applauded  Cleon  in  the  Pnyx  listened  with  enjoyment  to  the 
Philoctetes  of  Sophocles,  a  drama  in  which  there  is  no  action 


LATIN   AND   GREEK  69 

save  the  taking  away  and  giving  back  of  a  bow,  all  the  rest 
being  the  play  of  emotions  in  three  men's  breasts,  set  forth  in 
exquisite  verse. 

Or  go  back  to  the  stirring  times  of  Alcaeus  and  Sappho, 
when  Aeolian  and  Ionian  cities  along  the  coasts  of  the  Aegean 
were  full  of  song  and  lyre,  and  their  citizens  went  hither  and 
thither  in  ships  fighting,  and  trading,  and  worshipping  at  the 
famous  shrines  where  Hellenic  and  Asiatic  religions  had  begun 
to  intermingle,  before  the  barbaric  hosts  of  Persia  had  descended 
upon  those  pleasant  countries. 

Or  ascend  the  stream  of  time  still  further  to  find,  some 
centuries  earlier,. the  most  perfect  picture  of  the  whole  of  human 
life  that  was  ever  given  in  two  poems,  each  of  them  short 
enough  to  be  read  through  in  a  summer  day.  Think  in  particular 
of  one  passage  of  130  lines,  the  description  of  the  Shield  of 
Achilles  in  the  eighteenth  book  of  the  Iliad,  where  many  scenes 
of  peace  and  war,  of  labour  and  rejoicing,  are  presented  with 
incomparable  vigour  and  fidelity.  Each  vignette  has  been  com- 
pleted with  few  strokes  of  the  brush,  but  every  stroke  is  instinct 
with  life  and  dazzling  with  colour.  We  see  one  city  at  peace, 
with  a  wedding  procession  in  the  street  and  a  lawsuit  in  the 
market-place,  and  another  city  besieged,  with  a  battle  raging 
on  the  banks  of  the  river.  We  see  a  ploughing,  and  a  harvest, 
and  a  vintage,  and  a  herd  attacked  by  lions,  and  a  fair  pasture 
with  fleecy  sheep,  and,  last  of  all,  a  mazy  dance  of  youths  and 
maidens,  "such  as  once  in  Crete  Daedalus  devised  for  the  fair- 
tressed  Ariadne."  Above  these  the  divine  craftsman  had  set  the 
unwearied  sun  and  the  full-orbed  moon  and  the  other  marvels 
wherewith  heaven  is  crowned,  and  round  the  rime  of  the  shield 
rolls  the  mighty  strength  of  the  stream  of  Ocean. 

To  carry  in  our  minds  such  pictures  of  a  long-past  world 
and  turn  back  to  them  from  the  anxieties  of  our  own  time  gives 
a  refreshment  of  spirit  as  well  as  a  wider  view  of  what  man 
has  been,  and  is,  and  may  be  hereafter.  To  have  immortal 
verse  rise  every  day  into  memory,  to  recall  the  sombre  grandeur 
of  Aeschylus  and  the  pathetic  grandeur  of  Virgil,  to  gaze  at  the 
soaring  flight  and  many-coloured  radiance  of  Pindar,  to  be 
soothed  by  the  sweetly  flowing  rhythms  of  Theocritus,  what  an 
unfailing  delight  there  is  in  this !  Must  not  we  who  have  known 
it  wish  to  hand  it  on  and  preserve  it  for  those  who  will  come 
after  us? 


70  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

THE  VALUE  OF  THE  CLASSICS  TQ  THE 
STUDENT  OF  ENGLISH  ^ 

The  case  for  the  classics  does  not  rest  upon  their  value  to 
the  student  of  EngUsh.  That  is  not  the  chief  reason  why  they  are 
and  of  right  ought  to  be  studied;  but  it  is  one  reason  and  a 
good  reason.  There  are  times  both  in  war  and  in  grammar 
when  it  is  sound  stategy  to  bring  forward  the  auxiliaries  and 
to  put  the  subordinate  in  a  principal  position.  The  present 
seems  to  be  an  opportune  time  for  an  evolution  of  this  kind. 
For  English  is  now  the  central  study  of  all  public  high  schools. 
It  is  in  esteem  even  in  vocational  institutions  of  so  uncompro- 
mising a  type  that  the  word  Acropolis,  if  pronounced  distinctly 
within  their  walls,  would  sound  like  the  name  of  a  patent 
fertilizer.  It  is  honored  in  the  commercial  high  schools,  both 
as  a  substitute  for  subjects  that  the  youth  of  the  land  have 
found  very  troublesome  and  as  the  last  mark  of  devotion  to 
idealism  and  patriotism.  Your  business  friend  who  never 
notifies  but  always  "advises"  you  that  your  goods  have  arrived 
is  "strong  for  English,"  by  which  he  means  spelling  and  idiom 
that  suit  his  own  predilections  and  conform  to  the  conventions 
of  the  trade.  Indeed,  all  of  Germany  and  nearly  all  of  the 
United  States  are  in  favor  of  the  study  of  English,  though  the 
reasons  for  this  partiality  are  (as  the  catalogue  of  an  enter- 
prising engineering  school  once  described  it  own  courses)  "very 
various."  If  then  it  can  be  shown  that  some  knowledge  of  the 
classics  is  needed  by  the  student  of  English  the  case  for  the 
classics  is  strengthened  for  everybody.  In  presenting  this  need 
I  imagine  myself  addressing,  not  a  body  of  learned  classical 
professors  and  teachers,  but  a  group  of  those  whom  Dr. 
Blimber  was  accustomed  to  call  "My  young  friends" —  students 
doubtful  about  beginning  or  continuing  classical  studies,  but 
ambitious  to  gain  a  mastery  over  English. 

What  we  all  desire  as  a  result  of  English  study  is  fluency 
and  accuracy  in  our  own  speech  and  real  understanding  and 
appreciation  when  we  read  the  speech  of  others.  Among  ambi- 
tious youth  the  first  object  of  desire  is  the  increase  of  available 
vocabulary.  Here  the  facts  are  reassuring  and  the  opportunities 
unlimited.  There  are  three  great  funds  of  words  in  the  English 
vocabulary.     There  is  a  fund  of  native  English  words,  a  fund 

*  Joseph  V.  Denney,  Professor  of  English,  Ohio  State  University.  The 
Classical  Journal.     9:94-101.     December,    1913. 


LATIN   AND   GREEK  71 

of  Romance  words  which  have  come  to  us  from  Latin  through 
the  French,  and  a  very  large  fund  which  we  have  derived 
directly  from  the  Latin  and  Greek.  The  last  two  funds  are  now 
really  one  huge  and  ever-increasing  word-hoard,  though  it  is 
still  useful  to  remind  ourselves  that  we  have  three  words  for 
every  idea  that  we  wish  to  express — three  at  least,  and  often 
more  than  three.  With  these  three  funds  to  draw  upon — the 
native  fund,  the  Romance  fund,  the  classical  fund — the  student 
of  English  is  poverty-stricken  if  he  must  forever  guess  and 
remains  ignorant  of  his  capacity  to  surmise  or  conjecture.  He 
is  tiresome,  horesome,  fatiguing,  exhausting,  debilitating  if  a 
freak  is  always  a  freak  to  him  and  never  a  caprice,  a  vagary, 
or  an  eccentrcify.  He  lacks  experience  if  he  has  seen  a  ghost 
and  never  an  apparition  or  a  specter.  He  is  not  even  much  of 
a  trickster  if  he  knows  only  craft  and  has  neither  deceit,  subt- 
lety, nor  artifice.  What  satisfaction  is  there  for  his  feelings  in 
calling  some  dolt  a  stupid  and  stopping  there?  Isn't  the  fool 
also  dull  and  obtuse,  and  probably  thick-skinned,  callous,  znd 
indurated  into  the  bargain  ?  To  pass  from  vituperation  to  its 
opposite,  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer  abounds  in  such 
duplicates  as  times  and  occasions,  pray  and  beseech,  changes 
and  alterations,  acknowledge  and  confess,  adorned  and  beauti- 
fied, assemble  and  meet  together,  weighty  and  important,  remis- 
sion and  forgiveness,  sins  and  transgressions,  requisite  and 
necessary,  pardon  and  forgive,  dissemble  and  cloak,  image  and 
similitude,  loving  and  amiable,  enterprized  and  taken  in  hand. 
What  would  Bryant  have  done  with  his  beautiful  "Fringed 
Gentian"  if  he  had  had  but  the  one  word  "blue"  to  describe  its 
color?  or  even  but  the  two  words,  blue  and  azure?  We  can 
see  his  dire  need  of  a  three-  or  four-syllable  word  in  the  lines- 
Then  doth  thy  mild  and  quiet  eye 
Look  through  its  fringes  to  the  sky — 
Blue,  blue  as  if  that  sky  let  fall 
A  flower  from  its  cerulean  wall. 

The  practical  needs  of  the  poet  are  not  to  be  overlooked  in 
this  materialistic  age.  Now  if  this  twofold  and  threefold 
characteristic  of  our  vocabulary  were  not  well-night  universal 
it  would  deserve  but  passing  remark.  But  it  is  the  big  fact  about 
English,   the   fact   that   especially   concerns   the  man   who   calls 


12  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

himself  practical  and  who  seeks  fluency  and  accuracy  from  his 
study  of  language.  His  rightful  heritage  is  three  or  more  words 
for  every  idea.  Does  he  command  them?  Do  they  come  when 
he  needs  them?  Is  he  satisfied  with  the  one  word  for  building 
or  house,  or  does  he  know  also  dwelling,  shelter,  domicile, 
habitation,  residence,  edifice,  structure,  fastness,  stronghold, 
palace,  cottage,  hall,  hovel,  mansion,  manor,  castle,  hut, 
fortress,  construction,  fortification,  retreat,  sanctuary — as  he  has 
need  and  occasion  to  use  any  one  of  these?  These,  whether  of 
native  or  classical  origin,  are  now  indiscriminately  English 
words.  But  practical  young  America  will  say,  "Why  should  L 
be  at  the  labor  of  studying  Latin  in  order  to  add  them  to  my 
usable  vocabulary?  Why  not  go  straight  to  the  dictionary  or 
to  a  book  of  synonyms?  Why  not  make  lists  and  memorize 
them?"  One  reason  is  that  they  will  not  stay  memorized,  if 
accumulated  in  any  such  wholesale  or  mechanical  fashion.^JIhe^ 
dictionary  will  ri^^  ^^^^  y^"  wV>qt  ynn  need  to  know  unless  you 
h^ve  enough  Latin  (i)  to  get  the  value  of  suffixes  and  prefixes.  , 
(2)  to  get  the  root-meaning,  and  (^)  the  training  to  discern  the/ 
'Oriivitial  image  back  of  the  root-meaning.  These  things  are 
^usylble  only  as  one  acquires  one's  words  to  meet  a  real  and 
immediate  need  of  expressing  ideas.  Chiefly  they  are  the 
result  of  painstaking  translation. 

A  second  reason  is  that,  what  I  have  said  above,  about  three 
words  for  every  idea,  is  not  strictly  true.  No  matter  how 
similar  in  meaning  words  may  be,  there  is  always  a  difference 
in  their  possible  applications,  a  difference  due  to  tone,  spirit, 
temper,  to  the  influence  of  associated  words,  or  to  arbitrary 
usjige.  The  choice  of  words  thus  becomes  a  matter  of  telling 
or  not  telling  the  truth.  Expertness  in  phrase-making  and  in  the 
use  of  prepositions  depends  upon  a  true  perception  of  root- 
images.  Burke's  expression  of  a  common  idea,  "  In  this  posture 
things  stood/'  reveals  his  sense  for  true  association  of  images. 
Untrained  by  his  Latin  he  would  doubtless  have  said:  "Things 
were  about  like  that."  No  one  ever  achieves  perfection  in  this 
difficult  business;  the  deplorable  fact  is  that  so  many  young 
people  never  begin  it  at  all.  Even  a  little  Latin  or  Greek  is 
valuable  here.  At  least  it  will  enable  one  to  detect  the  broader 
distinctions — to  reach  certainty  about  memoranda,  propaganda, 
and  formulae,  for  instance — and  it  may  induce  good  habit. 
At  any  rate,  no  vocational  guide  that  I  ever  set  eyes  on  is  wise 
enough  to  tell  any  young  American  at  the   beginning  of  his 


LATIN   AND  GREEK  73 

high-school  course  that  this  part  of  his  education  may  safely 
be  neglected.  Even  an  instructor  of  the  deaf  and  dumb  in 
mat-weaving  must  needs  make  an  occasional  distinction.  And  is 
it  not  true  that  the  men  of  a  half -century  ago  who  spoke  with 
such  power  against  the  classical  training  of  their  day  were 
able  to  make  the  distinctions  by  which  they  carried  their  cause 
to  victory  mainly  because  they  had  enjoyed  the  benefits  of  that 
same  classical  training?  Compare  their  utterances  with  those 
of  the  later  breed  of  Philistines,  and  the  difference  is  as  great 
as  that  noted  by  Mark  Twain  between  lightning  and  the  light- 
ning bug. 

The  student  of  accuracy  in  English  needs  Latin  or  Greek 
in  order  that  he  may  master  the  Grammar  of  English.  I  am 
well  aware  that  teachers  of  elementary  Latin  would  like  it  if 
their  pupils  came  to  Latin  fully  competent  in  English  grammar. 
The  wish  is  vain.  Only  by  comparison  in  kind  can  grammatical 
concepts  be  firmly  fixed.  A  second  language  with  which  to 
compare  the  English  procedure  is  a  necessity  if  the  English 
grammar  is  to  be  mastered.  ;  Thousands  of  people  have  testified 
to  the  fact  that  not  until  they  studied  a  second  language  did 
English  grammar  become  clear  to  them.  And  the  second 
language  should  by  all  means  be  Latin,  partly  because  of  the 
completeness  of  its  grammatical  apparatus,  but  chiefly  because 
the  native  English  sentence  was  first  made  orderly,  logical, 
serviceable,  and  efficient  under  the  influence  of  the  grammar  of 
Latin.  1'^  It  was  the  destruction  of  the  previous  Latiil  civilization 
in  England  by  the  Danish  invasions  of  the  ninth  century  that 
suggested  to  Alfred  the  need  of  translations  by  the  few  priestly 
scholars  still  remaining  who  could  render  their  services  in 
EngHsh,  or  translate  an  epistle  into  the  vernacular.  "God 
Almighty  be  thanked,"  wrote  the  pious  king,  as  he  thought  of  the 
ignorance  of  his  clergy,  "that  we  have  now  any  teachers  in 
office."  Translations  followed  during  the  next  century,  with  the 
result  that  is  usual  when  thought  is  transferred  from  a  language 
that  is  equipped  with  a  mature  and  logical  syntax  to  a  language 
still  crude  and  primitive.  The  English  sentence  acquired  some- 
thing like  a  standard  of  grammatical  and  logical  competency; 
not  that  Latin  idiom  was  bodily  transferred,  but  that  English 
idiom  became  self-conscious  and  capable  of  self-improvement. 
The  English  of  the  average  youth  of  today  needs  precisely  that 
discipline.  One  of  the  chief  benefits  of  the  study  of  the  Latin 
grammar   and   the   practice   of   Latin    composition   is   that   the 


74  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

Latin  syntax  compels  logical  statement.  The  Latin  sentence 
/  represses  waywardness  and  teaches  many  lessons  of  method  and 
^  order  that  are  not  easily  or  economically  learned  by  practice 
I  in  English  alone.  The  English  does  not  compel  a  boy  to  stop 
■  and  think  what  he  is  about.  He  does  not  see  the  need  of  it. 
'  The  English  grammar  is  to  him  a  superfluity  and  an  impudent 
interference  with  the  rights  of  man.  He  readily  concedes,  how- 
ever, that  it  is  necessary  to  attend  to  grammatical  detail  when 
he  is  trying  to  master  another  tongue.  If  that  other  tongue  be 
Latin  or  Greek  it  gradually  equips  him  with  grammatical  con- 
cepts that  serve  him  equally  well  in  practicing  his  own  speech. 
(The  management  of  clauses,  for  instance,  of  tense,  sequence,  of 
indirect  discourse,  of  linking  apparatus,  of  position  and  prepo- 
sition— so  troublesome  in  writing  English,  is  learned  through 
Latin  as  a  matter  of  necessity;  it  is  seldom  learned  thoroughly 
through  English  alone,  as  any  journalist  can  testify  or  illustrate.\\ 
The  right  attitude  toward  questions  of  English  grammar  is 
achieved  only  when  there  is  possibility  of  constant  comparison 
and  contrast.  It  is  not  pertinent  to  my  puropse  here  to  bring  for- 
ward the  well-known  fact  that  historically  the  Latinists  in  certain 
periods  of  English  literature  have  not  proved  a  salutary 
influence  upon  the  English  sentence.  It  is  sufficient  to  note 
that  the  things  complained  of — involved  clauses,  and  over- 
burdened sentences — are  favorite  faults  of  speech  with  those 
who  have  shunned  Latin  for  fear  of  spoiling  their  English  style. 
All  that  I  have  said  has  been  on  the  purely  practical  level 
and  addressed  to  the  very  youthful  student,  who  in  most  cases 
is  as  yet  no  student  at  all.  And  all  of  it  applies  equally  well 
to  reading,  to  getting  even  familiar  present-day  thought  from 
the  printed  page.  But  the  elementary  student  has  needs  beyond 
familiar  and  present-day  thought.  He  cannot  read  with  pleasure 
and  freedom  even  the  carefully  selected  English  classics  that 
are  set  for  him  in  the  secondary  schools  unless  through  his 
Latin  he  has  gotten  an  initiation  into  Roman  and  Greek  ideas. 
Up  to  this  very  century  English  literature  has  been  produced  by 
people  who  were  trained  in  classical  ideas,  or  who,  not  being  so 
trained,  at  least  lived  their  lives  in  a  society  familiar  with 
these.  jiThe  student  of  English  if  devoid  of  Latin  and  Greek 
must  pick  and  choose  his  reading  with  great  care  if  he  would 
maintain  his  interest  for  long.  ( Unless  he  confine  himself  to 
the   Saturday  Evening  Post  and   the  journal   of   his   trade   he 


LATIN   AND   GREEK  75 

will  many  times  feel  himself  a  stranger  where  the  reader  with 
even  little  Latin  and  less  Greek  will  feel  at  home)  He  will 
find  whole  periods  of  English  prose  impossible  and  much  of 
English  verse  beyond  his  imaginative  reach.  He  must  confine 
himself  to  the  contemporaneous,  and  often  suffer  the  feeling 
of  detachment  even  there.  He  is  debarred  from  real  intel- 
lectual sympathy  with  no  inconsiderable  portion  of  nineteenth- 
century  prose  and  verse — to  mention  only  the  more  familiar 
names,  with  portions  of  Longfellow,  Lowell,  and  Emerson,  the 
Arnolds,  the  Brownings,  the  Morris',  Landor,  Keats,  Shelley, 
Byron,  Tennyson,  Wordsworth,  Macaulay,  Newman,  George 
Eliot,  Ruskin,  Rossetti,  Pater,  and  even  Tom  Moorej  Of  course 
this  catalogue  would  grow  very  rapidly  if  he  tried  tp  extend 
his  reading  backward  into  the  eighteenth,  seventeenth,  and 
sixteenth  centuries.  No  fewer  than  one  hundred  and  twenty- 
five  English  poets  and  prose  writers,  including  most  of  the 
great  names,  require  mention  in  such  books  as  Gayley's  Classic 
Myths  in  English  Literature.  It  is  not  the  large  number  of 
direct  allusions  to  the  classics,  however,  that  makes  the  trouble. 
The  difficulty  lies  deeper.  One  may  work  assiduously  with 
reference  books  and  may  find  in  them  many  useful  facts.  But 
when  the  proper  names  are  missing  and  phrases  are  encountered 
that  lie  one  or  two  removes  from  plain  statement,  enjoyment 
must  cease  for  the  student  who  has  no  part  in  that  literary 
inheritance  which  classical  culture  has  bequeathed.  To  such  a 
one,  even  Lowell's  prose  will  be  full  of  mysterious  subtleties 
and  dark  hints  that  are  untraceable,  and  consequently  offensive 
to  the  ignorant.  Anybody  may  learn  a  textbook  statement  about 
John  Milton's  English  prose  and  have  it  ready  for  examination; 
but  like  most  things  learned  for  examination  it  may  as  well 
be  forgotten  the  next  day  by  those  who  cannot  read  Milton's 
English  prose  itself  and  get  meaning  out  of  it.  The  textbook 
of  English  literary  history  must  be  taken  on  faith  by  one  who 
cannot  verify  even  the  statements  which  hurl  themselves  at  him 
in  the  coarse  print,  to  say  nothing  of  the  fine  print  and  the 
footnotes.  What  real  perception  of  the  truth  about  the  nature 
of  the  influences  that  are  vaguely  called  classical  and  pseudo- 
classical  can  the  Latinless  student  acquire  ?  Yet  these  influences 
h^ve  been  always  present  and  at  times  they  have  dominated 
whole  periods.  The  fact  is  that  historical  criticism  may  as  well 
be  abandoned  by  the  student  of  English  who  can  have  no  first- 


76  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

hand  contact  with  the  Latin  writers  that  are  said  to  have 
influenced  English  writers.  Critical  terms  are  baneful  things 
when  employed  inaccurately.  As  for  the  scholar's  work  in 
tracing  the  origins  of  literary  forms  and  species,  that  is  of 
course  out  of  the  guestion.  Even  the  casual  reader  of  English 
literary  history  comes  not  infrequently  upon  the  names  of 
Cicero,  Vergil,  Horace,  Ovid,  Terence,  Plautus,  Homer,  and 
Theocritus — and  little  good  it  does  him.  Without  a  minimum 
(which  I  dare  not  specify)  of  reading  in  Latin  and  Greek,  not 
much  reliance  can  be  placed  upon  the  use  of  translations  by 
the  English  student,  if  trustworthy  conclusions  are  expected. 
Imaginative  sympathy  will  accomplish  wonders,  but  imaginative 
sympathy  must  have  at  least  a  slight  foundation  on  which  to 
build. 

Aesthetic  criticism  is  not  a  permanent  refuge.  No  wonder 
that  aesthetic  criticism  has  gradually  degenerated  into  mere 
personal  opinion.  The  only  possible  step  left  is  that  already 
taken  by  some — to  break  utterly  with  the  past,  even  with  the 
very  recent  past,  and  to  renounce  and  denounce  all  English 
writers  whom  we  find  not  agreeable  to  our  modernism.  The 
penalty  that  we  shall  pay  for  all  this  is  already  visible  in  the 
shallowness  and  whimsicality  of  much  of  our  English  instruc- 
tion. The  future  of  real  English  study  is  bound  up  with  that 
of  the  other  languages  and  especially  Latin  and  Greek.  The 
real  issue  is  not  between  ancient  and  modern  languages,  nor 
between  English  and  other  modern  languages.  It  is  between 
serious  language-study  and  no  worthy  language-study  at  all — 
not  even  in  English.  When  that  issue  is  plainly  discerned  the 
reaction  may  be  expected.  Meanwhile  the  preservation  of  stand- 
ards in  the  English  work  itself  imposes  upon  English  teachers 
everywhere  the  duty  of  promoting  classical  studies  as  a  matter 
of  self-interest. 


MUST  THE  CLASSICS  GO?^ 

Is  classical  training  necessary  in  liberal  education?  To 
appreciate  this  question  we  must  first  know  what  education 
means.  Every  man  is  born  into  this  world  ignorant  both  of 
himself  and  his  surroundings,  but  to  act  his  part  so  as  to  reach 

*  Andrew  F.  West.  North  American  Review.  138:151-62.  February, 
1884. 


LATIN   AND   GREEK  n 

success  and  happiness  needs  to  understand  them  both.  There- 
fore, he  must  learn;  and  having  to  learn,  bust  be  educated. 
This  will  involve  two  processes : 

I.  The  development  of  man's  power  to  master  himself  and 
circumstances,  by  training  every  capacity  to  its  highest  energy, 
— discipline.  2.  Communication  of  the  most  valuable  knowl- 
edge,— information.  Both  are  necessary.  Discipline  precedes 
information,  because  power  precedes  acquisition.  Information 
completes  discipline  by  yielding  actual  results  in  the  world.  In 
a  word,  discipline  gives  power  to  acquire  information,  and  the 
total  result  is  culture. 

The  two  great  instruments  of  educational  discipline  and 
information  have  hitherto  been  mathematics  and  language,  lead- 
ing to  physical,  intellectual,  and  social  sciences,  and  these  again 
culminating  in  a  philosophy  or  study  of  first  principles  of  all 
things.  On  this  basis  our  college  education  has  been  built. 
None  propose  excluding  mathematics.  Few  question  the  need 
of  studying  language  in  some  form.  But  when  the  classical 
languages  are  proposed  as  essential  to  liberal  education,  objec- 
tions arise  and  pronounced  attacks  are  made.  I  propose  merely 
three  things : 

I.    To  enumerate  the  objectors  and  answer  their  objections. 
II.     To  state  the  positive  argument  for  classical  training. 
III.     To  state  the  reasons  for  retaining  Greek  as  well  as  Latin. 

I.    The  objectors  and  their  objections.     These  are: 

1.  Men  of  active  rather  than  contemplative  temperament. 
They  care  chiefly  for  what  prepares  immediately  for  some  spe- 
cific calling,  and  are  so  absorbed  in  civil  and  commercial  activ- 
ities that  they  value  only  what  bears  obviously  in  these  lines. 
John  Stuart  Mill  has  well  shown  the  weakness  of  this  position : — 

"Experience  proves  that  there  is  no  one  study  or  pursuit  which,  prac- 
ticed to  the  exclusion  of  all  others,  does  not  narrow  and  pervert  the 
mind;  breeding  in  it  a  class  of  prejudices  special  to  that  pursuit,  besides  a 
general  prejudice  common  to  all  narrow  specialities  against  large  views 
from  an  incapacity  to  take  in  and  appreciate  the  grounds  of  them.  We 
need  to  know  more  than  the  one  thing  that  is  to  be  our  principal  occu- 
pation. This  should  be  known  as  well  as  it  can  be  known,  but  we  should 
also  acquire  a  clear  general  knowledge  of  the  leading  truths  of  all  the 
great   subjects    of   human   interest." 

2.  Those  who  have  never  studied  the  classics.  Many  are 
college  graduates.  But  their  objection,  if  good,  is  good  against 
any   study  they  may  have   failed   to   appreciate   from   want  of 


78  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

proper  teaching,  of  application,  or  of  capacity.  Herbert  Spencer, 
a  pronounced  enemy  of  the  classics,  does  not  profess  to  read 
them  except  in  translations.  In  this  respect,  many  college  men 
resemble  Mr.  Spencer. 

3.  Those  who  are  imbued  with  the  money-making  spirit  of 
the  age.  These,  if  they  believed  that  studying  Greek  and  Latin 
was  the  road  of  wealth,  would  all  worship  classical  culture.  But 
to-day  the  obvious,  the  "effective,"  the  "realistic,"  the  perversely 
vulgar,  nursed  on  money-worship  and  covered  skin-deep  with 
affected  cultivation,  is  too  apt  to  crowd  out  the  thoughtful  and 
tt-efined,  and  smother  to  death  the  heroic.  Neither  the  hostility 
nor  the  approbation  of  this  element  counts  for  anything,  because 
wholly  ignorant  and  selfish. 

4.  Those  who  dislike  classical  studies  because  of  distaste  for 
any  severe  training,  and  a  corresponding  relish  for  lighter  arts 
and  accomplishments.  They  want  culture  only  as  far  as  it  is 
immediately  enjoyable.  They  desire  results  without  the  process, 
and  so  would  resist  thorough  training  in  anything.     Hence  they 

*  answer  themselves. 

5.  Those  who  believe  literature  necessary,  but  think  modern 
languages  should  be  substituted,  as  being  genuine  literature, 
and  a  necessary  part  of  modern  life.  But  to  study  modern 
languages  we  do  not  need  to  displace  the  classics.  The  trouble 
here  is  •not  the  difficulty  of  making  place  for  an  extensive 
language  course,  but  the  prevalence  of  bungling  methods  of 
teaching,  and  the  excessive  time  wasted  on  elementary  mathe- 
matics, especially  arithmetic,  in  so  many  schools.  No  such 
trouble  exists  in  Germany.  There,  only  one-sixth  of  the  time, 
at  the  most,  goes  to  mathematics,  while  to  language  even  the 
Realschulen,  or  scientific  schools,  give  two-sixths,  and  the  Gym- 
nasia four-sixths  of  their  time.  If,  then,  there  is  room  for  both, 
why  not  teach  both?  Suppose,  however,  we  have  to  make  the 
choice.  The  reasons  for  retaining  the  classics  would  be  most 
cogent. 

r        First.     Because   they  are   immeasurably   superior   to   modern 
languages   as   means   of   discipline.     Their   structure  is   regular 
and  highly  complex.    Modern  languages  do  not  contain  material 
I      out  of  which  to  construct  a  logical  grammar  like  theirs.     What 
I     does  English,  French,  or  German  grammar  amount  to?     Simply 
f     debris  of  the  classical  languages,  mixed  with  barbaric  elements. 
Second.   Even  if  modern  languages  equaled  the  classics  in 


LATIN    AND   GREEK  79 

structure,  they  would  be  less  likely  to  be  used  consistently  for 
discipline.  So  much  time  necessarily  goes  to  mastering  pro- 
nunciation and  acquiring  merely  facility  of  use,  which  necessi- 
tates only  inferior  mental  effort,  that  this  is  often  mistaken  for 
mastery  of  the  language.  Furthermore,  modern  languages  are 
too  near  our  own  modes  of  thinking  to  help  us  enlarge  our 
knowledge  in  kind  by  entering  widely  different  fields  of  thought, 
as  we  need  to  do. 

Third.  No  modern  languages  have  yet  stood  the  great  test 
of  permanence  which  the  classics  have  now  endured  for  morei 
than  twenty  centuries.  Only  a  dozen  generations  have  read/ 
Shakespeare.  But  Homer  has  already  led  the  way  to  literary! 
immortality  for  a  hundred  generations,  with  Plato,  Virgil,  andj 
Horace   not   far  behind. 

Fourth.  Modern  languages,  just  because  modern,  are  grow- 
ing, and  hence  ever  changing.  This  unfits  them  to  be  a  perma- 
nent basis  for  culture. 

6.  Some  advocates  of  physical  science.  Their  objection  is 
that  science  (meaning  physical  science)  furnishes  better  disci- 
pline and  information  than  the  classics  or  anything  else.  Sup- 
pose it  does.  Must  we  study  only  physical  science?  Is  there 
no  room  for  any  other  training?  May  not  classical  training  be 
scientific  too?     If  correct,  must  it  not  be  scientific? 

But  this  objection  is  composite.  Let  us  examine  its  parts; 
they  are  as  clearly  stated  in  Herbert  Spencer's  book,  "Educa- 
tion," as  anywhere. 

"But  now  mark  that,  while  for  the  training  of  mere  memory,  science 
is  as  good  as,  if  not  better  than,  language,  it  has  an  immense  superiority 
in  the  kind  of  memory  it  cultivates.  .  .  .  Language  establishes  'con- 
nections of  ideas'  based .  upon  facts  *in  a  great  measure  accidental,*  but 
science  upon  facts  'mostly  necessary.'  Though  words  and  their  meanings 
have  relations  *in  some  sense  natural';  yet  since  *in  the  acquisition  of 
languages  as  ordinarily  carried  on,  these  natural  relations  between  words 
and  their  meanings  are  not  habitually  traced  nor  the  laws  regulating  them 
explained,  it  must  be  admitted  that  they  are  commonly  learned  as  fortui- 
tous relations.  On  the  other  hand,  the  relations  presented  by  science  are 
casual  relations,  and,  when  properly  taught,  are  understood  as  such.' 
Language  'exercises  memory  only,  the  other  exercises  both  memory  and 
understanding.'  " 

What  greater  error  could  be  written?  Examine  it:  science 
is  superior  in  "the  kind  of  memory  it  cultivates," — that  is,  causal 
memory.  Is  there  no  causal  memory  in  learning  the  structure 
of  the  Greek  verb,  the  "build"  of  complex  etymology,  the  orderly 
logic  of  syntax?  Can  it  avoid  being  causal?  Are  there  not 
laws  of  discourse,  necessities  in  order  and  display  of  thought? 


8o  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

Is  antique  civilization — the  one  world-wide  civilization  of  his- 
tory, all  whose  features  are  in  its  literature,  whose  rise,  organic 
growth,  decay,  and  death,  run  in  long  Hues  for  centuries,  to  be 
learned  by  rote? 

But  Mr.  Spencer's  contrast  is  made  out  in  unfair  language. 
It  is  not  allowable  to  draw  inferences,  as  if  from  premises  of 
equal  value,  by  phrasing  things  in  this  way,  "the  acquisition 
of  languages,  as  ordinarily  carried  on,"  and  then,  "the  relations 
which  science  presents  are  casual  relations,  and,  when  properly 
taught,  are  understood  as  such."  Of  course  they  are,  and  so  are 
they  in  language,  "when  properly  taught."  His  next  objection 
— that  science  better  cultivates  the  judgment — is  of  the  same 
nature  as  his  remarks  on  memory.  He  fails  to  see  that  classical 
study  deals  not  merely  with  words,  but  with  things,  with  a  vast 
body  of  remarkable  fundamental  phenomena,  and  hence  the 
judgment  must  be  highly  exercised. 

Mr.  Spencer  next  insists  that  science  is  best  for  moral 
training. 

"The  learning  of  languages  tends,  if  anything,  to  increase  the  already 
undue  respect  for  authority.  .  .  •  .By  the  pupil,  the  teacher's  or 
grammar's  dicta  are  received  as  unquestionable.  His  constant  attitude  of 
mind  is  that  of  submission  to  dogmatic  teaching.  And  a  necessary  result 
is  to  accept  without  inquiry  whatever  is  established.  Quite  opposite  is 
the  frank,  independent  attitude  of  mind  generated  by  the  cultivation  of 
science." 

This  is  simple  quibbling.  Apply  it  to  any  science,  say  chemis- 
try, and  you  could  not  require  a  student  to  "submit"  to  the 
"dogmatic  teaching"  that  inculcates  authoritatively  (though 
only  provisionally)  its  symbols,  atomic  weights,  formulae,  specific 
gravities,  and  entire  stock-knowledge.  So  in  history,  in  teaching 
events  and  dates.  So  in  arithmetic,  numbers  and  their  relations 
must  first  be  learned  arbitrarily  or  not  learned  at  all.  So  in 
teaching  a  child  the  alphabet  or  even  his  own  name. 

But  this  is  self-destructive  also,  as  already  hinted.  All  teach- 
ing must  be  instilled  dogmatically  at  first,  and,  unless  the  pupil 
accepts  it,  no  progress  of  any  sort  is  possible.  Now,  in  the 
classics,  "when  properly  taught,"  and  in  all  genuine  teaching, 
this  dogmatic  communication  must  be  received,  but  received 
provisionally  as  a  basis  for  further  investigations,  to  be  verified 
or  disproved,  as  the  pupil's  experience  and  discerning  powers 
increase.  What,  then,  becomes  of  Mr.  Spencer's  argument  for 
scientific  education?  Science,  to  be  taught,  must  be  "dogmatic" 
in  its  beginnings,  or  else  becomes  unteachable,  and  must  "go." 


LATIN   AND   GREEK  8i 

Mr.  Spencer  lastly  claims  transcendent  value  for  science 
against  the  classics  as  "information."  But  is  physical  science 
the  only  science?  Is  not  man,  is  not  humanity  full  of  scientific 
phenomena?  Is  it  not  man's  interest  to  know  himself,  in  order 
to  become  what  he  ought  to  be,  more  than  to  know  or  do  any- 
thing else?  Are  not  his  thoughts  the  expression  of  himself,  and 
language  the  outside,  of  which  all  human  thought  is  the  inside? 
In  this  light,  language  is  as  worthy  of  scientific  study  as  exter- 
nal nature. 

7.  Those  who  have  suffered  from  erroneous  methods  of 
teaching.  Here  is  the  strongest  source  of  attack.  A  great  field 
is  occupied  by  teachers  mostly  unacquainted  with  the  art  of 
teaching.  In  mathematics  this  difficulty  is  less  troublesome. 
Everything  there  is  "exactly  right"  or  "exactly  wrong."  Method, 
the  key  to  all  education,  lies  on  the  surface  and  is  simple  rigorous 
deduction,  constantly  asserting  itself  and  revenging  its  violations 
immediately.  It  is  therefore  easily  acquired,  and  hence  good 
elementary  mathematical  teachers  are  numerous  and  commercially 
cheap.  Not  so  in  classics.  Here  we  encounter  a  grammar  the 
most  perfect  yet  discovered,  constructed  from  languages  rich 
to  completeness  in  a  vast  variety  of  inflectional  forms,  with 
vocabularies  where  every  word,  even  every  word-element,  indi- 
cates a  distinct  thought,  with  a  syntax  articulated  to  every 
imaginable  kind  and  form  of  thinking;  we  meet  a  literature 
embracing  acknowledged  models  in  every  style,  and  stored  with 
the  wisdom  of  a  great  civilization  now  passed  away,  but  on 
which  we  stand.  Method  does  not  lie  on  the  surface  here.  It 
must  be  hunted  out  with  great  patience,  and  needs  thorough 
philosophical  powers,  first  to  discover,  and  next  to  apply  it  in 
teaching.  Hence,  good  classical  teachers  are  rare,  and  conse- 
quently expensive.  Here  the  financial  necessities  of  schools 
come  in,  and  secure  cheap  teachers  who,  of  course,  do  cheap 
teaching.  Ignorant  of  the  rationale  of  their  subject,  their  pupils 
become  still  more  so,  and  plod  drearily  along  or  else  evade 
their  tasks,  receiving  a  minimum  of  benefit  outweighed  by  a 
maximum  of  mental  injury.  Hence,  many  array  themselves 
against  the  classics.  -Their  hatred  of  the  caricature  is  just;  their 
enmity  to  the  culture  itself  is  deplorable. 

11.     The  positive  argument  for  classical  training: 

Every  man's  entire  life  is  occupied  with  one  continuous  pro-^ 
cess  of  thought,  of  which  the  simplest,  easiest,  and  one  universal 


82  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

instrument  is  language.  At  the  basis  of  knowledge  lies  the  fact 
""IKSl  we  think  of  things.  What  we  think  is  thought,  and  the  ex- 
pression of  thought  is  language.  If  our  thought  tallies  exactly 
with  the  thing  thought  of,  we  have  an  exactly  correct  thought, 
and  if_ expression  tallies  with  thought  we  have  an  exactly  cor- 
rect expression.  Things  underlie  thought;  thought  underlies 
language.  Here  is  the  heart  of  the  subject.  Only  as  language 
and  thought  coincide,  can  knowledge  itself  be  communicated 
and  preserved;  while  so  long  as  they  are  equivalent,  language 
is  as  good  as  thought,  just  as  a  sound  paper  currency  is  as  good 
as  the  gold  it  represents. 

What  does  all  this  necessitate  in  education?  Not  teaching 
all  languages.  This  is  practically  impossible.  It  therefore  in- 
volves a  selection  of  those  best  suited  to  accomplish  the  pro- 
cesses of  education, — discipline  and  information.  If,  then,  we 
can  discover  which  languages  these  are,  we  must  adopt  them  as 
the  basis  of  all  thorough  literary  education. 

For  educational  purposes  we  make  two  classes,  a  man's 
native  tongue  and  foreign  languages.  The  first  we  must  know, 
of  course,  as  it  is  our  chief  means  of  intercourse.  But  we  need 
more,  both  to  understand  English  itself  and  enlarge  our  range 
of  knowledge  and  so  obtain  completeness  of  power.  Hence  we 
need  foreign  languages.  These  are  of  two  sorts,  ancient  and 
modern.  From  the  first  class  all  are  prepared  to  rule  out  Ori- 
ental languages.  What  remains?  Latin  and  Greek,  the  two 
fundamental  languages  of  European  culture  wherever  it  has 
spread.  From  the  second  we  rule  out  as  unessential  all  except 
French  and  German.  I  jirmly  believe  we  can  teach  all  four, — 
Latin,  Greek,  French,  German, — with  English  as  well,  under  any 
well-ordered  system,  and  if  we  could  not,  modern  languages 
might  easily  be  acquired  outside  of  our  schools. 

However,  I  ground  the  claim  of  the  classical  languages  to  a 
preeminent  place  on  their  immense  superiority  over  all  other 
languages,  living  or  dead,  as  means  of  mental  discipline.  Let 
us  hear  Mr.  Mill's  argument  for  this: — 

"Even  as  mere  languages,  no  modern  European  language  is  so  valu- 
able a  discipline  to  the  intellect  as  those  of  Greece  and  Rome,  on  account 
of  their  very  regular  and  complicated  structure.  Consider  for  a  moment 
what  grammar  is.  It  is  the  most  elementary  part  of  logic.  It  is  the 
beginning  of  the  analysis  of  the  thinking  process.  The  principles  and 
rules  of  grammar  are  the  means  by  which  the  forms  of  language  are  made 
to  correspond  with  the  universal  forms  of  thought.  The  distinctions  be- 
tween the  various  parts  of  speech,  between  the  cases  of  nouns,  the  modes 
and    tenses    of    verbs,    the    functions    of    participles,    are    distinctions    in 


LATIN   AND   GREEK  83 

thought,  tiot  merely  in  words.  Single  nouns  and  verbs  express  objects 
and  events,  many  of  which  can  be  cognized  by  the  senses;  but  the  modes 
of  putting  nouns  and  verbs  together,  express  the  relations  of  objects  and 
events,  which  can  be  cognized  only  by  the  intellect;  and  each  different 
mode  corresponds  to  a  different  relation.  The  structure  of  every  sen- 
tence is  a  lesson  in  logic.  The  various  rules  of  syntax  oblige  us  to  dis- 
tinguish between  the  subject  and  predicate  of  a  proposition,  between  the 
agent,  the  action,  and  the  thing  acted  -upon;  to  mark  when  an  idea  is 
intended  to  modify  a  quality,  or  merely  to  unite  with  some  other  idea; 
what  assertions  are  categorical,  what  only  conditional;  whether  the  in- 
tention is  to  express  similarity  or  contrast,  to  make  a  plurality  of  asser- 
tions conjunctively  or  disjunctively;  what  portions  of  a  sentence,  though 
grammatically  complete  within  themselves,  are  mere  members  or  subordi- 
nate parts  of  the  assertion  made  by  the  entire  sentence.  Such  things 
form  the  subject  matter  of  universal  grammar;  and  the  languages  which 
teach  it  best  are  those  which  have  the  most  definite  rules,  and  which 
provide  distinct  forms  for  the  greatest  number  of  distinctions  in  thought, 
so  that  if  we  fail  to  attend  precisely  and  accurately  to  any  of  these 
we  cannot  avoid  committing  a  solecism  in  language.  In  these  qualities 
the  classical  languages  have  an  incomparable  superiority  over  every  mod- 
ern language,  and  over  all  languages,  dead  or  living,  which  have  a  liter- 
ature   worth    being    generally   studied." 

So,  too,  in  their  value  as  literature.    Mr.  Mill  continues : — 

"But  the  superiority  of  the  literature,  itself,  for  the  j)urposes  of  edu- 
cation, is  still  more  marked  and  decisive.  Even  in  the  substantial  value 
of  the  matter  of  which  it  is  the  vehicle,  it  is  very  far  from  having  been 
superseded.  The  discoveries  of  the  ancients  in  science  have  been  greatly 
surpassed,  and  as  much  of  them  as  is  still  valuable  loses  nothing  by  being 
incorporated  in  modern  treatises;  but  what  does  not  so  well  admit  of  be- 
ing transferred  bodily,  and  has  been  very  imperfectly  carried  off,  even 
in  piecemeal,  is  the  treasure  which  they  accumulated  of  what  may  be 
called  the  wisdom  of  life;  the  rich  store  of  experience  of  human  nature 
and  conduct,  which  the  acute  and  observing  minds  of  those  ages,  aided 
in  their  observations  by  the  greater  simplicity  of  manners  and  life,  con- 
signed to  their  writings,  and  most  of  which  retains  all  its  value.  Their 
writings  are  replete  with  remarks  and  maxims  of  singular  good  sense 
and  penetration,  applicable  both  to  political  and  to  private  life;  and  the 
actual  truths  we  find  in  them  are  even  surpassed  in  value  by  the  en- 
couragement  and  help   they   give   us   in   the   pursuit  of   truth. 

"Human  invention  has  never  produced  anything  so  valuable,  in  the 
way  both  of  stimulation  and  of  discipline,  to  the  inquiring  intellect,  as 
the  dialectics  of  the  ancients,  of  which  many  of  the  works  of  Aristotle 
illustrate  the  theory  and  those  of  Plato  exhibit  the  practice.  No  modern 
writings  come  near  to  these  in  teaching,  both  by  precept  and  example, 
the  way  to  investigate  truth  on  those  subjects,  so  vastly  important  to  us, 
which  remain  matters  of  controversy  from  the  difficulty  or  impossibility 
of  bringing  them  to  a  directly  experimental  test.  To  question  all  things; 
never  to  turn  away  from  any  difficulty;  to  accept  no  doctrine,  either  from 
ourselves  or  from  other  people,  without  a  rigid  scrutiny  by  negative 
criticism,  letting  no  fallacy  or  incoherence  or  confusion  of  thought  slip 
by  unperceived;  above  all,  to  insist  upon  having  the  meaning  of  a  word 
clearly  understood  before  using  it,  and  the  meaning  of  a  proposition 
before  assenting  to  it;  these  are  the  lessons  we  learn  from  the  ancient 
dialecticians.  With  all  this  vigorous  management  of  the  negative  element, 
they  inspire  no  skepticism  about  the  reality  of  truth  or  indifference  to 
its  pursuit.  The  noblest  enthusiasm,  both  for  the  search  after  truth 
and  for  applying  it  to  its  highest  uses,  pervades  these  writers,  Aristotle 
no  less  than  Plato,  though  Plato  has  incomparably  the  greater  power  of 
imparting  those  feelings  to  others.  In  cultivating,  therefore,  the  ancient 
languages  as  our  best  literary  education,  we  are  all  the  while  laying  an 
admirable   foundation    for    ethical    and    philosophical    culture. 

"In  purely  literary  excellence,  in  perfection  of  form,  the  preeminence 
of  the  ancients  is  not  disputed.     In  every  department  which  they  attempted 


84  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

— and  they  attempted  almost  all — their  composition,  like  their  sculpture, 
has  been  to  the  greatest  modern  artists  an  example  to  be  looked  up  to 
with  hopeless  admiration,  but  of  inappreciable  value  as  a  light  on  high 
guiding   their   own   endeavors." 

Has  not  Mr.  Mill  covered  the  whole  case? 

in.     The  reasons  for  retaining  Greek  as  well  as  Latin: — 

1.  There  is  time  to  teach  both  without  injuring  other  studies. 
This  has  been  abundantly  proved  in  the  Prussian  gymnasia,  or 
classical  schools.  Latin  and  Greek  form  the  central  core  of 
instruction,  occupying  half  their  entire  time.  They  also  teach 
the  Christian  religion,  German,  French,  history,  geography, 
arithmetic,  algebra,  plane  and  solid  geometry,  plane  trigonome- 
try, natural  history,  physics,  writing,  drawing,  music,  gymnas- 
tics. Where  do  they  save  time  for  this?  Mainly  in  mathe- 
matics and  physical  science,  which  receive  jointly  less  than  half 
the  time  given  Latin  and  Greek,  or  but  a  trifle  more  than  is 
given  Greek  alone. 

We  should  imitate  the  German  example.  First,  by  lessening 
the  excessive  time  devoted  to  such  study,  for  example,  as  arith- 
metic. In  some  States  it  has  received  over  half  the  entire  school- 
time  in  certain  years.  Why  should  mathematics,  either  in  gen- 
eral or  in  particular,  receive  three  times  the  attention  it  receives 
in  Germany?  Second,  we  should  teach  Greek  better,  both  before 
and  in  college.  Here  time  is  saved  by  really  using  it.  Our 
trouble  is  not  too  much  Greek,  but  too  much  badly  taught 
Greek. 

2.  Two  important  languages  are  better  than  one.  Especially 
is  this  true  in  Latin  and  Greek,  whose  differences  are  even  more 
remarkable  than  their  resemblances. 

3.  While  these  differences  give  Latin  a  directer  connection 
with  our  civilization,  yet  Greek  offers  a  finer  instrument  for 
personal  culture.  Latin  is  the  mother  of  modern  tongues,  the 
language  of  law,  history,  empire,  practical  energy,  collective 
movements  of  men.  But  Greek  is  the  mother-tongue  of  pure 
thought,  the  perfect  instrument  of  human  reason.  The  inex- 
haustible source  for  deriving  the  newest  scientific  terms  to 
record  the  latest  advances  of  thought  in  other  languages,  it  yet 
never  seeks  to  borrow  for  itself.  It  is  subtler  and  more  exact 
than  Latin,  more  distinct  in  separate  forms,  more  complex  in 
masses,  and  more  intimate  in  its  mental  attitude. 

4.  The  Greek  spirit,  best  studied  at  its  original  sources,  is 
distinctively  the  great  incentive  to  high  creative  effort  in  art. 


LATIN   AND   GREEK  85 

Antique  sculpture  and  architecture — indispensable  to  art-students 
to-day — were  its  early  children.  Homer  was  its  first  poet,  and 
liis  spell  has  worked  in  every  world-renowned  epic  since.  Its 
light  was  hidden  in  the  Dark  Ages,  but  when  the  Reformation 
unlocked  man's  conscience,  the  Florentine  Greeks  unlocked  his 
intellect.  Canova,  Leonardo  da  Vinci,  Raphael,  Michael  Angelo, 
— these  were  but  Greeks  late  born.  Greek  rhythms  rule  modern 
music.  Read  the  scores  of  Palestrina,  any  fugue  of  Bach,  or 
Beethoven's  symphonies.  Read  Wagner's  great  letter  on  "The 
Music  of  the  Future."    All  are  Greek  throughout. 

5.  It  is  the  truly  scientific  spirit.  Not  that  the  Greeks  ob- 
served so  many  facts,  but  that  they  taught  the  world  how  to 
think.  Huxley  to-day  vindicates  Aristotle's  scientific  acuteness. 
Agassiz  has  shown  that  he  also  observed  important  facts  about 
Mediterranean  fishes,  and,  though  the  fishes  remained  abundant, 
the  facts  were  only  brought  to  light  in  modern  times  by  con- 
sulting Aristotle's  work.  The  facts  were  the  same ;  the  observers 
were  not  Aristotles.  Passing  these  minutiae,  look  at  our 
.standard    scientific    conceptions:    "ideas,"    "method,"    "theory," 

"practice,"  "hypothesis,"  "energy,"  "atoms,"  arid  the  nomencla- 
ture of  science, — all  essentially  Greek.  Examine  conflicting 
schools  of  thought.  All  have  Greek  prototypes.  Men  to-day 
are  naturally — what  the  Greeks  first  were  historically, — stoics 
and  epicureans,  dogmatists  and  skeptics,  materialists  and  ideal- 
ists, agnostics  and  theists,  and  battle  in  the  endless  war  of  ideas 
bequeathed  from  their  Greek  ancestors.  The  stream  of  history 
is  one.     Who  shall  divide  it? 

6.  Lastly,  Latin  itself  is  injured  by  separating  it  from  Greek. 
Withdrawing  Greek  means  crippling  Latin.  This  helps  to  dis- 
integrate classical  culture,  and  so  disastrously  affects  liberal 
education.  As  to  the  injury  done  Latin.  This  follows  from 
the  relations  of  the  two  languages,  but  I  pass  this  and  again 
appeal  to  the  invaluable  experience  of  Germany.  The  studies 
of  the  Gymnasia  have  been  already  stated.  Alongside  of  this 
stands  the  Realschule,  whose  general  make-up  is  the  same, 
except  that,  though  Latin  is  retained,  Greek  is  dropped,  English 
and  chemistry  added,  and  mathematics  and  science  increased 
one-half.  In  revised  plans  of  instruction  issued  in  1882  for 
secondary  schools,  by  the  Ministry  of  Education,  and  containing 
criticisms  on  the  past  twenty-five  years'  experience,  these  com- 
ments occur:     "In  the  Realschulen  the  result  from  the  Latin 


86  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

jinstruction  by  no  means  corresponds  either  with  the  amount  of 
time  devoted  to  it  or  to  the  importance  assigned  this  instruction 
in  the  general  plan  of  these  institutions."  This  arises  from  the 
small  number  of  hours  given  Latin,  and  from  the  excess  of 
natural  science  which  has  proved  "decidedly  disadvantageous." 
No  such  complaints  arise  about  gymnasial  teaching  either  of 
Latin  or  science.  Wherein  does  the  Realschule  fail?  Just  where 
it  differs  from  the  Gymnasia — that  is,  in  the  absence  of  Greek 
and  consequent  excess  of  science.  "The  main  point,"  says  the 
"Opinion"  of  the  University  of  Berlin,  "is  that  the  instruction 
given  in  the  Realschule  lacks  a  central  point;  hence  the  unstead- 
iness in  its  system  of  teaching.  ...  In  a  word,  it  has  not 
been  possible  to  find  an  equivalent  for  the  (two)  classical 
languages  as  a  center  of  instruction." 

As  to  the  injury  done  to  liberal  education.  To  prove  this  1 
take  the  best  test  in  the  world, — comprehensive  educational 
experience  of  undoubted  authority.  In  1870  the  Prussian  Min- 
istry of  Education  determined  to  try  the  experiment  of  granting 
university  privileges  to  Realschulen  graduates  alongside  of  those 
coming  from  Gymnasia.  After  over  ten  years  of  such  trial,  the 
Philosophical  Faculty  of  the  University  of  Berlin  has  recorded 
its  judgment  on  the  matter  in  an  "Opinion"  addressed  to  the 
Ministry  of  Education.  This  is  the  central  faculty  of  the  uni- 
versity, including  all  departments  except  Law,  Medicine,  and 
Theology.  It  numbers  over  one  hundred  instructors,  and  pro- 
vides about  two  hundred  courses  of  lectures.  It  enrolls  such 
names  as  Helmholtz  the  physicist,  Kirchhoff  in  spectrum  analysis, 
Hofmann  in  chemistry,  Ranke  and  Droysen  in  history,  Mommsen 
and  Curtius  in  the  classics,  and  Zeller  in  philosophical  criticism. 
If  we  desired  a  supreme  court  of  culture  to  decide  the  classical 
question,  to  what  better  tribunal  could  we  appeal  than  this? — 
the  central  faculty  of  the  most  illustrious  university  of  the 
best  educated  nation  in  the  world.  Its  judgment,  always  weighty, 
is  here  simply  irresistible,  because  based  upon  careful  investiga- 
tion, and  unanimous. 

The  "Opinion"  rests  upon  the  testimony  of  those  instructors 
who  have  taught  Realschule  and  Gymnasia  graduates  together. 
These  are  the  professors  of  mathematics,  astronomy,  chemistry, 
descriptive  natural  science,  philosophy,  economics,  statistics,  and 
modern  languages.  Their  testimony,  detailed  with  great  clear- 
ness,  is   strongly   adverse  to   allowing   Realschule   graduates   a 


LATIN   AND   GREEK  87 

continuance  of  university  privileges.  Many  grave  evils  due  to 
their  admission  are  enumerated,  and  the  Faculty  expresses  the 
conviction  that,  unless  Prussia  is  ready  to  surrender  her  historic 
university  system,  "it  is  doubly  hazardous"  to  shut  their  eyes 
to  causes  that,  unchecked,  will  bring  about  this  deplorable  result. 
The  essence  of  their  judgment  is  in  these  words: — 

"The  preparatory  education  acquired  in  Realschulen  is,  taken 
altogether,  inferior  to  that  guaranteed  by  the  Gymnasia."  This 
is  for  many  reasons,  "but  above  all,  because  the  ideality  of  the 
scientific  sense,  interest  in  learning  not  dependent  on  nor  limited 
by  practical  aims,  but  ministering  to  the  liberal  education  of 
the  mind  as  such,  the  many-sided  and  widely  extended  exercise 
of  the  thinking  power,  and  an  acquaintance  with  the  classical 
bases  of  our  civilization  can  be  satisfactorily  cultivated  only 
in  our  institutions  of  classical  learning."  Such  is  the  strongest 
plea  yet  made  for  classical  education  in  all  its  integrity.  Is 
it  sufficient?     If  not,  what  can  be? 

Greek  need  not  go.  Let  it  remain.  Rather  let  it  begin  to 
come.  It  was  born  in  the  morning  of  history.  Mythology  fabled 
that  its  heroes  were  the  children  of  immortals,  and  the  records 
of  humanity  promise  to  confirm  that  claim.  It  schooled 
antiquity;  it  has  been  the  historic  safeguard  for  freedom  of 
thought;  it  awakened  the  modern  mind;  it  contains  the  most 
precious  literary  treasures  of  the  race.  Its  corporeal  form — the 
ancient  civilization — has  perished.  Its  material  works  of  art,  of 
priceless  value,  survive  only  in  the  crumbling  column,  the 
ruined  temple,  or  the  statue  insecurely  housed  in  some  museum 
against  Vandals  of  future  time.  But  its  best  monument  is  its 
literature,  multiplied  a  thousand-fold  by  the  printer's  art  and 
'imbedded  in  succeeding  civilized  thought.  This  still  remains  to 
challenge  mankind  in  "charmed  accents."  In  the  pages  of  its 
texts,  saved  by  centuries  of  diligence,  the  scholar  by  his  quiet 
llamp  reads  back,  through  long  perspectives  of  perfect  thought, 
to  the  very  beginnings  of  things  intellectual.  He  gains  a  view- 
point where  all  lines  of  his  intellectual  being  center  and  whence 
they  broadly  radiate.  He  sees  the  past  sweeping  on  through  the 
present  and  flowing  widely  into  the  far  future.  He  sees  that 
humanity,  both  individually  and  in  the  mass,  is  thus  always  one, 
and  its  generations,  separate  in  time,  united  in  nature;  and  so, 
instead  of  studying  Greek  because  it  is  Greek,  he  studies  it  to 
understand  himself. 


88  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

THE  MEASUREMENTS  OF  EFFECTS  OF  LATIN 
ON  ENGLISH  VOCABULARY  OF  HIGH 
SCHOOL    STUDENTS    IN    COM- 
MERCIAL COURSES  1 

In  our  own  country  today,  even  among  the  educated,  only 
too  few  recognize  the  importance  o£  the  Latin  element  in  the 
English  vocabulary.  Rarely  do  we  find  the  case  for  Latin  stated 
more  forcibly  than  in  the  words  of  Prof.  Page,  of  Dartmouth 
College.2 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  extent  to  which  our  scientific  words 
are  taken  from  the  Latin  may  be  seen  at  a  glance  by  quoting 
from  well-known  books  in  science  such  statements  as  the  fol- 
lowing: "The  aqueous  solution  has  a  neutral  reaction  ;"3  and 
again :  "This  question  of  the  influence  of  the  solvent  on  the 
molecular  weight  of  the  dissolved  substance  is  one  of  practical 
importance,"* 

That  the  vocabulary  of  commerce  has  been  taken  from  the 
Latin  nearly  to  as  great  a  degree  as  the  vocabulary  of  science 
is  evident  if  one  will  merely  read  at  random  a  page  or  two 
of  any  textbook  in  commercial  geography,  commerical  law,  or 
history  of  commerce.  Hence,  we  are  not  surprised  to  find  the 
following  statement  in  the  Century  Dictionary:  "The  vocabulary 
of  literature  and  commerce  contains  a  majority  of  words  of 
foreign  origin,   chiefly  Latin  or  Greek."" 

The  inference,  therefore,  seems  to  be  clear,  that  a  commer- 
cial student,  unless  he  is  to  be  seriously  handicapt  in  the  struggle 
of  life  thru  ignorance  of  the  meaning  and  use  of  English  words 
of  Latin  origin,  which  form  so  large  a  part  of  the  vocabulary 
of  commerce,  ought  to  be  thoroly  grounded  in  the  Latin  language. 

Thus  it  happens  that  in  the  Dorchester  High  School  not 
only  college  preparatory  and  scientific  pupils  study  Latin,  but 
commercial  students  as  well.  In  fact,  during  the  present  year 
there  are  seven  sections  of  commercial  or  vocational  Latin, 
numbering  in   all   nearly  275   students. 

*  Albert  S.  Perkins.    Educational  Review.    52:501-6.    December,   1916. 

2  Ninth  Annual  Bulletin  of  the  Classical  Association  of  New  England, 
p.  12.  "If  the  bone  and  sinew  of  the  English  language  are  Anglo-Saxon, 
the  brain  of  it  is  Latin  and  Greek.  Both  the  scientifically  exact  state- 
ment of  any  but  the  most  elementary  facts,  and  the  expression  of  all 
abstract  thought,  in  English,  depend  mainly  upon  words  of  classical  origin." 

3  Roscoe  and  Schorlemmer,  Vol.   2,  p.    377- 

*  Walker,    Introduction   to   physical   chemistry,   p.    194. 

"  Vol.  III,p.  1932,  quoted  from  G.  P.  Marsh,  Lectures  in  the  English 
language,  XXVIIt, 


LATIN   AND   GREEK  89 

The  circumstances  which  led  to  the  placing  of  Latin  in  the 
commercial  curriculum,  together  with  the  actual  working  of  the 
course,  have  been  described  at  some  length  in  two  earlier  papers.^ 
On  this  occasion,  therefore,  I  will  merely  state  that  the  course 
in  commercial  Latin  is  for  two  years,  and  differs  from  the 
college  preparatory  Latin  in  making  the  study  of  English 
derivatives  its  chief  aim.  The  pupils  try  to  find  in  their  English 
dictionaries  as  many  derivatives  as  they  can  from  all  Latin  roots 
they  meet,  both  in  the  beginners'  book  and  from  the  authors 
read;  they  apply  prefixes  and  suffixes  to  the  simple  roots,  and 
record  in  notebooks  all  derivates  found,  classified  as  to  parts  of 
speech,  and  defined.  The  meaning  and  use  of  the  derivatives 
are  tnade  familiar  by  frequent  drills  and  written  exercises. 

We  are  told  that  "our  language  has  appropriated  a  full 
quarter  of  the  Latin  vocabulary,  besides  what  is  has  gained 
by  transferring  L^tin  meanings  to  native  words."^  In  this  con- 
nection it  is  interesting  to  note  that  in  the  first  year  and  a  half 
of  the  commercial  Latin  course  we  have  actually  met  over  700 
Latin  roots.  In  this  number  are  included  the  words  found  in 
the  beginners'  book,  and  in  short  stories,  and  extracts  from 
Caesar's  Gallic  War  red  during  the  half  term  of  the  second 
year.  It  is  safe  to  say  that  there  are  at  least  200  more  roots  in 
the  selections  from  Ovid,  Cicero  and  Vergil  we  shall  read  during 
the  rest  of  the  year.  Of  the  roots  already  cataloged,  only  63 
yield  less  than  five  derivatives,  while  facio  yields  173,  not  count- 
ing the  words  with  the  suffix  "fy,"  sto  yields  172,  plico  155,  verto 
133,  capio  132,  the  root  pend  and  the  Vferb  pono  116  each,  fero 
no,  rego  106,  specio  89,  sono  87,  modus  84,  premo  81,  video 
79,  creo  75  and  mitto  54.  The  great  majority,  however,  of 
the  Latin  words  yield  from  10  to  20  derivatives  each.  The 
advantage  of  grouping  so  many  derivaties  about  a  common  root 
is  apparent  to  all.  Furthermore,  by  what  method  could  pupils 
more  effectively  fix  the  meanings  of  this  large  number  of  Latin 
roots  than  by  constant  translation  of  Latin  into  English,  by 
frequent  practice  in  reading  at  sghit,  and  by  recording  in  note- 
books the  new  Latin  words,  and  reciting  from  their  notebooks 
the  words  they  have  had  before,  in  the  daily  routine  of  the 
classroom? 

The   help    afforded   high    school   boys    and   girls   in    spelling 

1  Latin  as  a  Practical  Study,  Classical  Journal,  Vol.  VIII,  No.  7,  April, 
19 1 3,  and  Latin  as  a  Vocational  Study  in  the  Commercial  Course,  Ibid., 
Vol.  X,  No.   I,  October,  1914. 

'  Greenough  and  Kittredge,  Words  and  their  ways  in  English  speech, 
p.   X06. 


90  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

English  words  derived  from  the  Latin  may  be  illustrated  by 
taking  a  few  simple  examples :  thus,  annihilate,  from  ad,  to, 
and  nihilj  nothing;  delegate,  from  de,  down  from,  and  legatus, 
representative ;  equanimity,  from  equ  in  aequiis,  even,  level,  and 
animus,  mind;  efficient,  from  efficens,  the  present  participle  of 
efficio,  and  this  from  ex,  out  of,  and  facio,  to  do — hence  the  two 
fs  and  ient.  Such  examples  might  be  multiplied  almost  in- 
definitely. 

At  the  suggestion  of  Prof.  Holmes,  of  the  Department  of 
Education  of  Harvard  University,  early  in  the  year  1914  a 
series  of  measurements  of  Latin  and  non-Latin  commercial 
pupils  of  equal  abiUty  was  made  by  the  English  department  of 
the  Dorchester  High  School,  to  determine  the  added  power  in 
English  vocabulary  acquired  by  the  study  of  Latin.^  In  five 
measurements  two  groups  of  pupils  were  selected,  one  in  the 
second  year  of  Latin,  and  the  other  in  the  second  year  of 
a  modern  language.  Such  pupils  were  chosen  that  each 
group  had  the  same  average  mark  in  Latin,  on  the  one 
hand,  and  modern  language,  on  the  other.  In  the  selection  of 
the  two  groups,  the  marks  in  English  were  also  taken  into 
account,  with  the  result,  in  actual  figures,  that  the  non-Latin, 
group  in  the  two  studies  averaged  0.5  of  i  per  cent  the  higher^ 
To  these  five  measurements  is  added  a  sixth,  made  in  June, 
1913.  In  selecting  the  two  groups  of  pupils  of  equal  ability 
for  this  measurement,  the  home  room  teacher  took  into  account 
not  only  foreign  language  and  English  II,  as  was  the  case  in. 
measurements  1-5,  but  all  studies  the  pupils  had  taken  during 
the  year.  Altogether,  76  pupils  were  included  in  the  six  measure- 
ments. 

The  results  were  as  follows: 

Averages 

January  and  February,    19 14  Latin  Non-Latin 

1.  Spelling 82.5  72.6 

2.  Use    of    words    in    sentences 57.5  40.6 

3.  Definitions   and  parts   of   speech 69.5  33-3 

4.  Meaning  of  words  and  spelling    57-o  27.5 

5.  Excellence    in    vocabulary     36.0  6.8 

June,    1913 

6.  Meaning   of    words    and    spelling 65.3  12.3 

6)367.8  6)193.1 

61.3  32.18 

32.18 

Difference    \.      29.12 

^Classical  Journal,  Vol.  X,  No.    i,  October,   1914,  p.    n- 


LATIN   AND   GREEK  91 

In  No.  5  the  pupils  wrote  upon  the  subject,  What  I  Like  to 
Do  Best.  Moreover,  since  practically  every  second-year  pupil 
could  write  at  least  passably  on  such  a  subject,  it  was  decided 
to  make  the  basis  of  comparison,  not  the  average  of  the  two 
groups,  but  the  percentage  of  rating  above  the  passing  mark. 
Furthermore,  in  this  vocabulary  test,  emphasis  was  laid,  not 
merely  upon  words  of  Latin  origin,  but  upon  any  words  out  of 
the  ordinary,  from  whatsoever  source.  The  wide  difference  in 
the  results — 36.0  per  cent  and  6.8  per  cent — would  seem  to 
indicate  that  the  work  in  commercial  or  vocational  Latin  gives 
the  pupils  the  dictionary  habit,  the  results  of  which  extend  far 
beyond  the  English  derivatives  actually  studied. 

In  No.  6  the  words  were  taken  entirely  from  Franklin's 
Autobiography  and  from  Silas  Marner,  whicli  the  pupils  of 
both  groups  had  just  read,  and  were  not  of  unusual  difficulty, 
consisting  of  such  words,  for  example,  as  asperity,  promiscuous, 
mortuary.  Yet,  by  referring  to  the  results —  65.3  per  cent  and 
12.3  per  cent — it  will  be  seen  that  to  the  non-Latin  group  of 
commercial  pupils   such   words   were  practically   meaningless. 

In  this  test  among  the  seventeen  non-Latin  pupils  the  highest 
grade  was  30  per  cent,  and  five  zeros  were  recorded.  In  the 
Latin  group,  on  the  other  hand,  the  lowest  mark  was  30  per 
cent,  while  one  pupil  received  100  per  cent,  two  90  per  cent,  two 
80  per  cent,  five  70  per  cent,  and  only  three  below  50  per  cent. 

In  view  of  such  results  with  commercial  pupils  the  question 
naturally  suggests  itself:  Why  should  not  the  drill  in  derivatives 
be  extended  to  the  college  preparatory  classses?  Judging  from 
the  reports  of  the  investigation  of  Mr.  Castle  at  Harvard  as 
to  the  average  college  student's  knowledge — or  rather,  ignor- 
ance— of  English,  this  question  is  peculiarly  apropos  at  the 
present  time.  ,As  things  are  now,  however,  the  secondary-school 
Latin  teacher  has  little  time,  even  if  he  has  the  inclination,  to 
go  beyond  the  bare  requirements  for  admission  to  college.  In 
that  case,  how  would  it  do  to  have  work  in  English  derivatives 
required  for  admission  to  college — optional,  perhaps,  with 
advanced  Latin  composition?  Such  a  requirement,  very  likely, 
would  result  in  a  shifting  of  emphasis  in  the  teaching  of  high 
school  Latin.  Translation,  it  is  hoped,  would  become  less  a 
bore,  since  it  would  serve  as  a  means  of  fixing  the  meaning 
of  the  roots  from  which  the  English  words  are  derived.  Further- 
more, the  severity  of  the  grind  in  syntax  ought  to  be  noticeably 
relaxed.     In  fact,  would  it  be  too  much  to  expect  that  interest 


92  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

might  be  stimulated  all  along  the  line?  Furthermore,  if  such 
a  shifting  of  emphasis  were  to  be  made,  as  the  result  of  a  new 
requirement  in  English  derivatives,  is  there  not  good  reason 
to  hope  that  fewer  high  school  pupils  might  fall  by  the  way- 
side, in  the  first  two  years  of  the  study  of  Latin,  and  that  the 
average  college  freshman's  grasp  on  English  might  be  perceptibly 
strengthened?  Would  not  such  results  be  a  consummation 
devoutly  to  be  wished? 


THE  CLASSICS  IN  BRITISH  EDUCATION  ^ 

Two  main  pqints  have  to  be  discussed:  first,  the  educational 
value  of  the  classics;  secondly,  the  possibility  of  making  a  place 
for  them  in  the  curriculum  alongside  of  the  other  subjects  which 
ought  to  form  part  of  it. 

The  Classical  Tradition 

The  Greek  and  Latin  classes  form  a  part,  and  historically 
the  most  important  part,  of  what  are  commonly  known  as  the 
Humanities.  The  Humanities  comprise  those  subjects  which 
deal  with  man  in  his  relation  to  other  human  beings  as  a  member 
of  society,  as  contrasted  with  Natural  Science,  or  the  subjects 
which  deal  with  the  universe  of  nature  and  with  man  in  his 
relation  to  it.  On  the  one  side  we  have  history,  hterature, 
language,  philosophy,  law;  on  the  other  astronomy,  geology, 
botany,  chemistry,  physics,  mechanics,  mathematics.  It  is  waste 
of  time  to  discuss  which  of  these  two  main  branches  of  educa- 
tion is  the  more  important;  for  both  are  obviously  necessary. 
What  we  have  to  consider  is  how  to  get  the  best  out  of  both; 
how  to  equip  the  young  mind  with  both  portions  of  the  armoury 
of  Ufe. 

When  the  foundations  of  European  education  were  laid,  the 
classics  and  theology  monopolized  the  whole  field.  There  were 
no  other  languages  or  literatures  known  that  were  worth  study, 
no  histories  comparable  with  those  of  the  ancients,  no  philosophy 
or  law  but  those  of  Greece  and  Rome,  and  but  little  science  or 
mathematics.  Modern  education  consequently  was  founded  on 
the   Bible  and  the  classics,   and   a  great  tradition  of   classical 

1  The  classics  in  British  Education.  Reconstruction  Problems  No.  21. 
British   Ministry   of   Reconstruction.    19 19. 


LATIN   AND   GREEK  93 

education  was  firmly  established  in  all  civilized  countries.  Only 
gradually  and  comparatively  lately  have  modern  languages  pro- 
duced literatures  in  any  sense  comparable  with  those  of  Greece 
and  Rome ;  only  more  lately  has  science  come  to  take  a  prominent, 
perhaps  a  predominant,  position  in  our  daily  lifej  only  within 
the  last  generation  or  two  has  either  subject  been  organised  as 
an   instrument   for  general   education. 

Hence  it  was  through  no  perversity  of  our  ancestors,  but  by 
the  natural  force  of  circumstances,  that  the  classics  have  formed 
the  main  feature  of  the  curriculum  of  all  secondary  schools  that 
are  more  than  half  a  century  old,  and  that  classics  have  a 
tradition  in  education  which  is  matched  by  no  other  subject.^ 
This  fact,  however,  though  it  entitles  them  to  respect,  does  not 
entitle  them  to  continued  exclusive  possession  now  that  other 
subjects  have,  so  to  speak,  arrived  at  manhood.  What  we  now 
have  to  seek  is  fair  play,  for  all,  and  see  that  in  letting  in  the 
new  do  not  lose  valuable  elements  which  only  the  old  can 
give  us. 

The  Claims  of  Other  Subjects 

Let  us  grant  first  ungrudgingly  the  claims  of  the  other  sub- 
jects. No  reasonable  person  will  deny  that  the  study  of  natural 
science  is  of  vital  practical  importance  for  the  life  of  the  modern 
world;  that  it  is  a  stimulating  and  ennobling  exercise  of  the 
mind;  that  every  child  should  be  shown  something  of  the  forces 
and  the  wonders  of  the  world  in  which  he  lives,  and  should 
learn  something  of  the  rigorous  methods  employed  in  the 
pursuit  of  scientific  knowledge.  Equally  true  is  it  that  modern 
history  has  a  value,  both  practical  and  educational,  which  it  had 
not  attained  a  couple  of  centuries  ago,  and  that  the  citizen  of 
a  modern  state  should  know  the  outlines  of  the  history  of  his 
own  country,  and  at  least  the  more  recent  history  of  the  other 
great  civilised  nations  with  which  we  are  in  contact.  One  might 
go  further,  and  say  that  one  of  the  serious  dangers  which 
threaten  our  present  poUty  is  the  ignorance  of  history  on  the 
part  of  the  mass  of  the  electorate,  which  deprives  their  political 
judgment  of  a  much  needed  ballast.  Modern  languages,  too, 
have  educational  possibilities  which  they  never  had  before;  not 
merely  because  we  travel  more  and  want  to  ask  our  way  and 

*  This  is  emphatically  stated  in  the  recent  Report  of  the  Prime  Min- 
ister's Committee  on  the  position  of  Modern  Languages  in  the  Educational 
System   of  Great   Britain. 


94  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

order  our  dinner  in  foreign  countries,  but  because  there  are 
great  literatures  in  French,  ItaUan,  Spanish,  German,  Russian 
which  it  is  good  for  us  to  read,  and  because  it  is  important 
for  us  to  comprehend  the  thoughts  of  peoples  with,  whom  our 
own  life  is  ever  more  and  more  closely  woven.  Further,  the 
purely  utilitarian  considerations  are  wholly  on  the  side  of  the 
modern  subjects.  For  the  conduct  of  daily  life,  of  commerce, 
of  industry,  of  politics,  we  want  modern  science,  modern 
languages,  and  modern  (though  not  exclusively  modern)  history. 
But  here  we  touch  on  the  great  peril  of  modern  education,  the 
danger  lest  in  our  pursuit  of  the  immediately  utilitarian  we 
lose  the  vital  spiritual  element  which  is  our  ultimate  goal. 

Value  of  the  Classics 

It  is  because  the  classics  contain  elements  of  the  highest 
spiritual  and  intellectual  value  which  cannot  be  obtained  else- 
where in  equal  force  or  equal  intensity  that  the  lover  of  educa- 
tion is  bound  to  fight  for  their  retention  as  one  of  the  leading 
components  of  our  national  system.  In  the  first  place,  Greek 
and  Roman  thought,  Greek  and  Roman  literature,  Greek  and 
Roman  language,  Greek  and  Roman  history,  lie  at  the  founda- 
tions and  enter  inseparably  into  the  structure  of  our  own 
thought,  literature,  language  and  history.  It  is  a  tragic  mistake 
to  think  of  them  as  ancient  or  dead  subjects.  The  history  and 
thought  of  Greece  and  Rome  are  far  nearer  to  us,  far  more  real 
to  us,  far  more  modern,  than  the  history  and  thought  of  the 
centuries  from  the  second  to  the  sixteenth  of  our  era.  They 
are  still  unexhausted  springs  of  thought  and  inspiration  to-day. 
In  the  crisis  of  the  last  four  years,  when  men  were  forced  back 
on  the  fundamentals  of  their  nature,  how  many  found  comfort, 
wisdom,  strength  in  the  literature  of  Greece  in  the  fifth  and 
fourth  centuries  before  Christ,  in  Aeschylus,  in  Thucydides,  in 
Plato?  And  how  often  in  the  problems  of  our  world-wide 
Empire  do  we  find  parallels  and  warnings  in  the  history  of  the 
Roman  Empire  which  we  could  find  nowhere  else? 

It  is  difficult  to  bring  home  to  those  who  have  not  thought 
about  it  the  extent  to  which  English  language,  literature,  and 
thought  are  based  upon  Greece  and  Rome,  and  are  unintelligible 
without  them.  Our  philosophy  is  based  upon  Plato  and  Aris- 
totle, and  makes  a  leap  thence  to  Hobbes  and  Locke;  and  Plato 
and  Aristotle  remain  unsuperseded  by  Kant  or  Hegel,  or  even 


LATIN   AND   GREEK  95 

by  Nietzsche  or  James.  The  whole  modern  system  of  law 
(though  less  in  England  than  in  France)  is  based  upon  Roman 
law.  Our  imaginative  literature  is  steeped  in  tl;ie  literature  of 
Greece  and  Rome;  its  forms,  its  subjects,  its  thoughts  come 
straight  thence  as  though  no  twenty  or  thirty  centuries  lay 
between.  Our  language  is  as  much  Latin  as  Saxon,  and  French, 
Italian  and  Spanish  are  but  Latin  modernised.  Merely  as  a 
means  to  understanding  modern  languages  and  literatures  a 
widely  diffused  knowledge  of  Greek  and  Latin  is  indispensable. 

But,  apart  from  the  intimate  association  of  classical  culture 
with  our  own,  its  positive  value  is  so  great  that  any  system  of 
education  which  weakened  our  knowledge  and  appreciation  of 
it  would  lower  the  standard  and  lessen  the  content  of  our  own 
culture.  It  is  the  simple  truth,  unquestioned  by  those  whose 
range  of  knowledge  qualifies  them  to  judge,  that  the  literature  of 
Greece  is  the  finest  in  the  world,  though  our  own  may  come  next 
to  it.  If  any  competent  critic  were  drawing  up  a  list  of  the 
great  writers  of  the  world,  he  could  hardly  help  naming  four  or 
five  Greeks  before  he  named  two  of  any  other  country.  We 
should  have  to  combine  the  greatest  representatives  of  Eng- 
land, France,  Italy,  Spain  and  Germany  to  make  a  list  which 
would  match  that  which  could  be  produced  from  Greece  alone, 
without  calling  on  the  support  which  Rome  could  furnish.  The 
imaginative  intellect  of  the  human  race  produced  its  finest  flower 
in  the  Greek  race,  and  the  whole  tone  of  our  civilisation  would 
be  lowered  if  our  knowledge  of  it — intimate  only  in  the  case  of 
comparatively  few  in  each  generation,  but  conveyed  by  them 
to  the  general  educated  sense  of  the  community  in  a  way  that 
would  not  be  possible  if  Greek  and  Latin  were  languages  as 
little  known  as  Arabic  or  Persian — were  sensibly  weakened  or 
confined  to  a  handful  of  specialists. 

A  third  aspect  in  which  Greek  and  Latin  are  irreplaceable  by 
modern  studies  is  the  purely  linguistic  one.  It  is  not  necessary 
to  depreciate  French  and  German  in  order  to  argue  that  Greek 
and  Latin,  as  subjects  of  study,  give  certain  elements  of  mental 
training  which  no  modern  language  can  give.  It  is  not  merely 
that  Greek  is  incomparably  beautiful,  and  possesses  delicacies 
of  style  which  are  themselves  a  liberal  education;  for  it  may 
reasonably  be  argued  that  only  the  elect  will  appreciate  them. 
More  important  is  the  fact  that,  while  they  convey  thoughts 
which  are  entirely  akin  to  our  own  methods  of  thinking,  they 


96  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

do  so  in  a  form  of  expression  so  different  from  ours  that  our 
minds '  are  exercised  to  transmute  the  one  into  the  other. 
Languages  sucji  as  French  or  Italian  are  at  once  more  -easy  and 
more  difficult.  They  are  more  easy  in  that  the  forms  of  sen- 
tences and  expressions  are  similar  to  our  own,  so  that  an  approx- 
imate translation  from  one  into  the  other  involves  little  mental 
exertion;  while  on  the  other  hand  the  nuances  which  differen- 
tiate words  apparently  identical  with  ours,  and  on  which  idiomatic 
knowledge  of  the  language  depends,  are  hardly  to  be  compre- 
hended by  the  young  student,  and  almost  necessitate  a  residence 
in  the  country.  Translation  from  and  into  Greek  and  Latin 
is  an  admirable  training  in  precision  of  thought  and  accuracy 
of  expression.  It  requires  first  of  all  a  clear  comprehension 
of  the  sense  of  the  passage  to  be  translated,  and  next  a  selection 
of  the  correct  words  by  which  to  convey  that  sense  in  another 
tongue.  For  those  who  have  higher  linguistic  and  stylistic  gifts 
there  are  other  benefits  to  be  derived  from  the  practice  of 
translation,  and  much  of  the  best  and  finest  appreciation  of 
language  and  literature  is  acquired  by  exercise  in  prose  and 
verse  composition ;  but  this  should  be  reserved  for  the  few  and 
not  thrust  upon  all.  But  for  all  the  practice  of  simple  prose 
translation  to  and  from  Greek  and  Latin  is  at  least  as  valuable 
an  intellectual  exercise  as  the  study  of  algebra  or  geometry  is 
for  those  who  are  not  going  to  be  expert  mathematicians. 

Social  and  Political  Problems 

A  fourth  consideration  which  must  be  touched  on  is  the  train- 
ing which  Greek  and  Latin  give  in  social  and  political  problems. 
Modern  forms  of  law  and  government  are  derived  from  those 
of  Greece  and  Rome.  The  problems  of  politics  and  of  empire 
that  confront  us  confronted  Greece  and  Rome,  were  discussed 
by  writers  whose  grasp  of  philosophic  thought  has  never  been 
surpassed,  or  were  dealt  with  by  the  administrators  of  the  one 
empire  which  in  all  history  most  resembles  our  own  in  scope 
and  character.  Moreover,  these  problems  occurred  then  in  more 
simple  and  less  complex  forms,  and  are  so  far  removed  from  us 
in  time  that  we  can  study  them  more  clearly  and  dispassionately 
than  those  of  our  own  country  and  time.  Yet  they  are  funda- 
mentally the  same.  Many  a  classical  scholar  during  these  last 
four  years  must  have  thought  again  and  again  of  historical 
parallels  in  Thucydides  and  Demosthenes,  and  must  have  had 


LATIN  AND  GREEK  97 

recourse  to  the  political  wisdom  of  Plato  and  Aristotle.  Many 
of  our  contemporary  public  men  would  deal  none  the  less  wisely 
with  the  problems  of  to-day  if  their  minds  were  steeped  in  the 
wisdom  and  fortified  by  the  knowledge  which  is  to  be  found 
in  the  political  and  historical  Hterature  of  Greece  and  Rome. 
There  we  find  the  trials  of  democracy  and  of  empire,  and  there 
we  watch  the  example  of  great  men  and  acute  thinkers  dealing 
with  the  elements  of  the  same  problems  as  ourselves.  It  is  a 
storehouse  of  experience  from  which  we  should  be  extremely 
foolish  to  cut  ourselves  off,  and  which,  on  the  contrary,  we 
should  do  our  best  to  lay  open  to  the  classes  into  whose  hands 
the  control  of  our  national  destinies  is  now  passing. 

Use  of  Translations 

It  is  not  possible  within  the  limits  of  a  short  pamphlet  to 
dwell  at  length  on  the  value  of  the  classics,  either  as  an  instru- 
ment of  intellectual  training  or  as  the  depository  of  indispensable 
information  and  moral  inspiration.  Nor  is  it  necessary.  No 
reasonable  advocate  of  natural  science  or  of  modern  subjects 
denies  the  value  of  the  classics,  any  more  than  the  value  of 
'  those  subjects  is  denied  by  reasonable  advocates  of  the  classics. 
The  question  at  issue  between  them  is  the  possibility  of  finding 
room  for  them  all  in  the  curriculum,  and  the  extent  to  which 
one  or  other  must  be  sacrificed  in.  order  to  make  way  for  its 
competitors.  But  at  this  point  it  may  be  as  well  to  touch  briefly 
on  an  argument  which  is  often  used,  namely,  that  the  essence 
of  classical  culture  can  be  sufficiently  inbibed  through  the 
medium  of  translations.  There  is  no  need  to  deny  the  modicum 
of  truth  that  resides  in  such  a  statement.  Translations  will 
convey  much  of  the  actual  information  contained  in  classical 
literature,  and  part  at  least  of  the  benefits  described  under  the 
fourth  head  of  the  above  summary  may  be  enjoyed  by  those  who 
cannot  read  Greek  or  Latin.  But  it  is  only  a  part,  and  even  this 
part  loses  something  of  its  force  and  flavour.  So  far  as  it  is 
true,  it  is  true  also  of  modern  languages.  One  can  learn  the 
lessons  of  French  and  German  history  without  reading  the 
authorities  for  it  in  their  own  tongue.  One  can  even  make 
some  acquaintance  with  the  genius  of  Dante  or  Cervantes 
through  translations.  Yet  no  advocate  of  modern  languages 
would  accept  this  as  an  adequate  training  in  modern  European 
culture,   even  though   translations   from  modern   languages   are 


98  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

usually  more  adequate,  and  approach  nearer  to  the  tone  and 
spirit  of  their  originals  than  is  possible  in  translations  from 
Greek  or  Latin.  And  where  Greek  and  Latin  are  strongest, 
in  the  expression  of  ideas,  in  the  conveyance  of  spiritual  in- 
spiration and  refreshment,  in  poetry,  in  philosophy,  in  the  art  of 
literary  expression,  translations  are  the  least  effective.  The 
student  who  reads  Plutarch  or  even  Livy  in  a  translation  does 
not  lose  much;  but  it  is  only  a  poor  and  inadequate  reflection 
that  he  will  obtain  from  even  the  best  translations  of  Homer 
and  ^schylus,  of  Herodotus  and  Thucydides,  of  Plato  and 
Aristotle,  of  Virgil  and  Horace  and  Tacitus.  For  all  except  the 
few,  like  Keats,  whose  kindred  genius  inspires  them  to  divine 
the  spirit  which  underlies  the  distorted  form,  a  very  great  part 
of  the  gift  which  the  classics  have  to  bestow  is  lost. 

Where  the  art  of  translation  is  really  helpful  is  in  accelerating 
the  progress  of  the  weaker  scholar.  If  a  student  has  once 
mastered  the  elements  of  Greek  and  Latin,  his  comprehension 
of  the  greater  masters  will  be  much  assisted  by  the  use  of  a 
competent  version.  Just  as  a  beginner  in  Italian  will  make  far 
more  rapid  and  easy  progress  with  Dante  if  he  already  knows 
Gary's  translation,  so  there  are  many  who  could  read  Thucydides 
or  Plato  with  profit  and  comprehension  if  they  had  Jowett's 
version  at  hand  to  help  them  over  difficulties.  Similarly,  many 
a  man  who  has  learnt  his  classics  at  school  will  find  it  easy 
to  keep  up  his  acquaintance  with  them  in  later  years  if  he  is 
able  to  glance  from  time  to  time  at  an  English  version.  A 
great  service  to  the  classics  has  been  rendered  by  the  production 
of  the  Loeb  series  of  classical  authors,  in  which  the  original 
and  the  translation  face  one  another  on  opposite  pages  of 
volumes  of  convenient  size. 

The  Discipline  of  Character 

Before  passing  on  to  consider  how  the  essential  benefits  of 
classical  culture  can  best  be  preserved  for  English  education, 
one  further  claim  on  their  behalf  cannot  be  passed  over.  It  is  a 
somewhat  more  contentious  topic  than  those  which  have  hitherto 
been  dealt  with,  but  there  is  no  reason  why  it  should  not  be 
stated  with  moderation.  Experience  has  shown  in  the  past  that 
a  classical  education  is  an  excellent  discipline  of  character.  It  is 
to  be  observed  first  that  a  classical  education  does  not  mean,  as 
controversialists   so   often   represent   it   to   mean,   an   education 


LATIN   AND   GREEK  99 

confined  to  the  study  of  Greek  and  Latin.  A  classical  education, 
in  a  good  school,  has  indeed  its  main  staple  in  the  study  of  these 
languages,  but  it  includes  as  important  subsidiaries  a  considerable 
amount  of  "divinity"  (Bible  study),  of  history  (ancient  and 
modern),  and  of  mathematics,  and  a  modicum  (possibly  a  small 
one)  of  natural  science  and  of  modern  languages.  The  proper 
proportions  of  these  subjects  is  a  legitimate  topic  of  discussion, 
and  will  be  referred  to  later;  but  it  may  be  claimed  for  the 
classical  education  of  the  past  that  it  trained  a  boy  to  be  a  useful 
member  of  society,  to  take  an  active  part  in  the  life  of  his 
school,  and  that  the  leaders  of  school  and  university  activities 
were  usually  to  be  found  among  the  classically  trained  boys. 
Testimony  to  this  effect  has  been  given  by  many  men  who  had 
no  parti  pris  in  the  matter,  or  whose  prepossessions  might  have 
been  expected  to  lead  them  to  an  opposite  conclusion ;  and  quite 
recently  some  interesting  statistics  have  been  published,  as  the 
result  of  a  comprehensive  inquiry  in  America.  Evidence  from 
this  source  is  additionally  valuable  because  it  can  be  gleaned 
from  a  wider  range  than  in  England,  and  because  it  comes  from 
a  country  where  the  classics  are  less  securely  entrenched  in 
tradition,  where  prejudice  is  rather  against  the  old  ways  than 
for  them,  and  where  new  subjects  and  new  experiments  get  a 
fair  field  and  ample  favour. 

This  evidence  is  contained  in  a  volume  by  Dr.  A.  F.  West, 
of  Princeton  University.*  The  main  bulk  of  it  is  occupied  by  the 
testimony  of  several  scores  of  leading  men  in  American  life — 
Presidents  of  the  United  States,  men  of  business,  scholars, 
lawyers,  doctors,  engineers,  science  professors,  journalists, 
historians,  and  writers  of  various  sorts.  At  the  end  are  a  few 
pages  of  statistics,  which  are  striking  even  to  those  whose  faith 
in  the  classics  is  most  profound.  The  figures  are  based  upon 
returns  covering  a  very  wide  range  of  universities.  These  are 
some  of  the  results : — 

"The  Secretary  of  the  College  Entrance  Examination  Board 
has  tabulated  the  comparative  records  of  the  classical  and  the 
non-classical  students  who  took  the  examinations  of  the  Board 
in  the  three  years  1914,  1915,  and  1916.  There  were  21,103 
candidates."  In  the  non-classical  subjects  2.95  per  cent  of  the 
classical  candidates  obtained  a  rating  of  90  to  100,  and  2.05  per 

1  Value  of  the  Classics  (Princeton  University  Press,  and  H.  Milford, 
London,    1917). 


100  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

cent  of  the  non-classical  candidates;  17:31  per  cent  of  the  clas- 
sical candidates  obtained  a  rating  of  75  to  89,  and  12.31  per  cent 
of  the  non-classical  candidates. 

"In  all  but  one  of  the  subjects  taken  by  any  large  number 
of  candidates  the  classical  students  show  a  marked  superiority 
over  the  non-classical." 

In  reports  from  19  high  schools  and  academies  and  17  colleges 
and  universities,  "students  receiving  High  Honors  at  graduation 
were  18  per  cent  of  all  the  classical  students,  but  only  7.2  per 
cent  of  all  the  non-classical  students.  .  .  Students  receiving 
Honors  or  Prizes  for  Debating,  Speaking,  or  Essay-writing  were 
8.8  per  cent  of  all  the  classical  students,  but  only  3.5  per  cent 
of  all  the  non-classical  students.  .  .  Students  winning  Prizes 
or  Honors  for  Scholarship  in  other  than  Classical  Subjects  were 
13.5  per  cent  of  all  the  classical  students,  but  only  9.3  per  cent 
of  all  the  non-classical  students."  In  the  institutions  from  which 
these  figures  are  drawn  the  non-classical  students  outnumber  the 
classical  by  over  10  per  cent,  yet  on  every  basis  of  comparison 
(and  only  a  few  have  been  quoted  above)  the  classically  trained 
men  show  the  better  record.  It  is  not  necessary  to  decry  other 
subjects,  which  for  many  individuals  are  preferable  and  have 
their  essential  place  in  the  community  and  in  the  educational 
curriculum;  but  for  the  all-round  training  of  the  citizen  the 
claim  of  the  classics  to  hold  the  premier  place  has  not  yet  been 
shaken. 

Relations  With  Other  Subjects 

If  space  permitted,  it  would  be  easy  to  collect  much  testimony 
from  men  of  science,  of  business,  or  of  commerce  to  the  value 
of  a  broad  humanistic  training  as  a  basis  for  work  in  quite  other 
fields  than  the  classics  or  literature  themselves.  But  it  is  time 
to  pass  on  to  the  further  question,  how  is  room  to  be  found 
for  the  classics  as  well  as  for  the  other  subjects  which  are 
pressing  for  an  increased  share  in  the  curriculum;  and  what 
should  be  the  relation  of  these  subjects  to  one  another? 

On  these  points  satisfactory  progress  has  been  made  during 
the  last  few  years  towards  a  general  basis  of  agreement.  Two 
reports  have  been  issued,  containing  an  account  of  a  series  of 
conferences  between  representatives  of  all  the  principal  subjects 

1  Education,  Scientific  and  Humane  (Murray,  i9i7>  price  6d.},  and 
Education,  Secondary  and  University  (Murray,  1919.  price  is.);  Both 
prepared   by    Sir    F.    G.    Kenyon   on   behalf   of  the    societies   concerned. 


LATIN   AND  GREEK  loi 

of  secondary  education.*  On  the  one  side  was  the  Education 
Committee  of  the  Conjoint  Board  of  Scientific  Societies,  a 
federation  of  about  sixty  scientific  organisations,  headed  by  the 
Royal  Society;  on  the  other  the  Council  for  Humanistic  Studies, 
a  similar  federation  of  the  Classical,  English,  Geographical, 
Historical  and  Modern  Language  Associations  and  other  bodies, 
headed  by  the  British  Academy.  The  results  of  the  conferences 
showed  a  singularly  harmonious  effort  to  fashion  a  scheme  of 
education  which  would  give  fair  play  to  all  subjects,  and  en- 
courage the  student  to  make  the  best  use  of  his  faculties. 

A  General  Curriculum 

The  nature  of  this  scheme  is  best  indicated  by  quoting  the 
following  series  of  resolutions: — 

1.  The  first  object  in  education  is  the  training  of  human 
beings  in  mind  and  character,  as  citizens  of  a  free  country, 
and  any  technical  preparation  of  boys  and  girls  for  a 
particular  profession,  occupation,  or  work  must  be  con- 
sistent with  this  principle. 

2.  In  all  schools  in  which  education  is  normally  continued 
up  to  or  beyond  the  age  of  sixteen,  and  in  other  schools 
so  far  as  circumstances  permit,  the  curriculum  up  to 
about  the  age  of  sixteen  should  be  general  and  not  special- 
ised; and  in  this  curriculum  there  should  be  integrally 
represented  English  (language  and  literature).  Languages 
and  Literatures  other  than  English,  History,  Geography, 
Mathematics,  Natural  Sciences,  Art  and  Manual  Training. 

3.  In  the  opinion  of  this  Conference  both  natural  science 
and  literary  subjects  should  be  taught  to  all  pupils  below 
the  age  of  sixteen. 

4.  In  the  case  of  students  who  stay  at  school  beyond  the  age 
of  sixteen  specialisation  should  be  gradual  and  not 
complete. 

5.  In  many  schools  of  the  older  type  more  time  is  needed  for 
instruction  in  natural  science;  and  this  time  can  often 
be  obtained  by  economy  in  the  time  allotted  to  classics, 
without  detriment  to  the  interests  of  classical  education. 

6.  In  many  other  schools  more  time  is  needed  for  instruction 
in  languages,  history  and  geography;  and  it  is  essential, 
in  the  interests  of  sound  education,  that  this  time  be 
provided. 


102  '       SELECTED   ARTICLES 

7.  While  it  is  probably  impossible  to  provide  instruction  in 
both  Latin  and  Greek  in  all  Secondary  Schools,  provision 
should  be  made  in  every  area  for  teaching  in  these  subjects, 
so  that  every  boy  and  girl  who  is  qualified  to  profit  from 
them  shall  have  the  opportunity  of  receiving  adequate 
instruction  in  them. 

No  Early  Specialisation 

The  root  idea  of  these  resolutions  is  obvious.  It  is  that  up  to 
about  the  age  of  sixteen  education  should  be  general,  and  that 
this  general  education  should  introduce  the  pupil  to  all  the 
principal  branches  of  knowledge — to  his  own  language,,  to  other 
languages,  ancient  and  modern,  to  history,  to  geography,  to 
mathematics,  to  natural  science,  besides  that  manual  training 
which  is  useful  to  all  and  the  one  congenial  mode  of  self-expres- 
sion to  some.  During  this  period  the  aptitudes  of  the  pupil  will 
be  declaring  themselves,  and  can  be  studied.  At  the  end  of  this 
stage  his  progress  will  probably  be  tested  by  an  examination 
(the  "First  School  Examination"  recognised  by  the  Board  of 
Education),  success  in  which  should  be  accepted  as  a  sufficient 
qualification  for  entry  into  a  university  or  to  other  courses  of 
study.  After  this  stage  specialisation  may  begin.  The  pupil 
will  devote  more  time  to  the  subject  for  which  he  has  most 
aptitude  or  which  he  intends  to  make  his  main  pursuit  at  the 
university.  But  other  subjects  will  not  be  wholly  dropped,  and 
some  kind  of  a  general  education  will  be  maintained  up  to  the 
end  of  school  life.  Only  at  the  university  will  specialisation 
become  complete. 

In  this  way  every  pupil  has  a  chance  of  acquiring  a  broad 
outlook  upon  life.  He  is  given  the  keys  of  many  doors,  and 
knows  something  of  the  treasures  which  he  may  expect  to  find 
behind  them.  Whatever  line  of  life  he  may  afterwards  pursue, 
he  has  the  possibility  of  sympathizing  intelligently  with  the 
interests  of  others,  and  understanding  the  importance  of  whole 
classes  of  knowledge,  even  though  his  own  knowledge  of  them 
is  small.  His  mind  is  not  narrowed  and  his  interests  limited  by 
a  premature  and  excessive  specialisation. 

The  Provision   of  Opportunity 

This  matter  of  the  provision  of  opportunity  is  of  great 
importance.     It  is  admirably  expressed  by  a  distinguished  man 


LATIN  AND  GREEK  103 

of  science,   Prof.   W.   Bateson,   in   the   following  words,  which 
show  a  catholic  sympathy  with  all  branches  of  knowledge: — 

"We  recognise  education  in  its  two  scientific  aspects,  as  a 
selective  agency,  but  equally  as  a  provision  of  opportunity.  In 
view,  therefore,  of  the  congenital  diversity  of  the  individual 
types,  that  provision  should  be  as  diverse  and  manifold  as  pos- 
sible, and  the  very  first  essential  in  an  adequate  scheme  of 
education  is  that  to  the  minds  of  the  young  something  of  every- 
thing should  be  offered,  some  part  of  all  the  kinds  of  intellectual 
sustenance  in  which  the  minds  of  men  have  grown  and  rejoiced. 
That  should  be  the  ideal.  Nothing  of  varied  stimulus  or 
attraction  that  can  be  offered  should  be  withheld.  So  only  will 
the  young  mind  discover  its  aptitude  and  powers.  This  ideal 
education  should  bring  all  into  contact  with  beauty  as  seen  first 
in  literature,  ancient  and  modern,  with  the  great  models  of  art 
and  the  patterns  of  nobility  of  thought  and  of  conduct;  and  no 
less  should  it  show  to  all  the  truth  of  the  natural  world,  the 
changeless  systems  of  the  universe,  as  revealed  in  astronomy 
or  in  chemistry,  something  too  of  the  truth  about  life,  what 
we  animals  really  are,  what  our  place  and  what  our  powers,  a 
truth  ungarbled   whether  by  prudery  or  mysticism."* 

Making  Room  for  Other  Subjects 

In  order  that  a  general  education  such  as  has  been  here  out- 
lined may  be  established,  and  that  full  provision  of  opportunity 
may  be  accorded  in  all  directions,  it  is  admitted  that  in  most  of 
the  older  secondary  schools  the  time  allotted  to  classics  must  be 
reduced.  This  is  frankly  accepted  by  many  of  the  keenest  advo- 
cates of  the  classics.  Latin  and  Greek  are  unquestionably  more 
difficult  than  most  other  subjects,  because  they  are  more  wholly 
strange  to  the  beginner;  and  consequently  a  fairly  generous 
allotment  of  time  must  be  given  to  them  if  any  progress  worth 
making  is  to  be  made.  But  it  is  possible  to  reduce  greatly  the 
details  of  grammar  (especially  the  more  exceptional  details), 
to  restrict  composition  (except  the  construction  of  simple  sen- 
tences) to  those  who  specialize  in  classics,  to  stimulate  the 
reading  of  easy  texts,  and  to  assist  progress  by  the  aid  of 
translations.  In  this  way  the  pupils  in  general  will  have  some  of 
the  interest  and  some  of  the  linguistic  training  of  the  classics 

'  Cambridge  Essays  on  Education,  ed.  A.  C.  Benson  (Cambridge,  19 17). 
p.    132-3. 


104  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

put  before  them.  Those  who  show  aptitude  for  the  subject 
will  be  able  to  pursue  it  to  its  higher  levels ;  while  those  who  go 
no  further  will  at  least  have  been  introduced  to  interesting 
portions  of  such  authors  as  Homer,  Herodotus,  Caesar  and 
Cicero,  and  will  have  some  comprehension  of  ancient  languages 
and  ancient  history. 

No  demand  is  now  made  that  classics  should  receive  unique 
privileges;  but  it  is  demanded  that  nothing  should  be  done  to 
weight  the  scales  against  those  who  have  an  aptitude  for  a  form 
of  education  so  effective,  so  wide-reaching,  so  rich  in  capacity 
for  forming  the  character  and  training  the  intellect.  This 
demand  is  made  not  in  the  interests  of  the  classics  (whatever 
that  phrase  may  mean),  but  in  the  interests  of  the  nation,  which 
cannot  afford  to  lose  so  valuable  an  element  from  its  culture. 

A  generous  rivalry  between  the  different  subjects  is  quite 
another  thing.  Each  should  strive  to  make  good  its  claim  to  be 
the  benefactor  of  the  human  species;  and  as  each  makes  good 
its  claim,  so  will  it  obtain  its  share  in  the  curriculum.  But  to 
grant  at  once  all  that  eager  advocates  of  the  newer  subjects  claim 
would  defeat  their  own  objects.  As  their  wiser  representatives 
admit,  they  have  to  perfect  their  methods,  to  train  their  teachers, 
to  establish  the  traditions  which  classics  admittedly  already 
possess.  The  Minister  of  Education  has  himself  recently  laid 
stress  on  the  need  for  gradual  expansion  on  the  part  of  the 
newer  subjects: — 

"It  must  always  be  remembered  that  the  newer  studies  suffer 
under  an  initial  disadvantage  which  it  takes  some  little  time  to 
correct.  Teachers  have  to  be  trained,  methods  have  to  be 
improved,  text-books  have  to  be  written,  a  tradition  has  to  be 
built  up  before  a  new  study  can  acquire  the  educational  value 
which  belongs  to  any  branch  of  discipline  which  has  been 
perfected  and  refined  by  improvements  continued  over  many 
generations.  For  this  reason  I  doubt  whether  Science  or  Modern 
Languages  would  be  in  a  position  at  once  to  make  good  use  of  all 
the  school  hours  which  their  more  extreme  advocates  demand 
for  them.  We  cannot,  in  other  words,  leave  altogether  out  of 
sight  the  existing  qualifications  of  the  men  and  women  who  are 
teaching  in  the  schools,  or  beneficially  correct  the  balance  of 
studies  in  the  curriculum  of  our  schools  unless  we  are  prepared 
to  give  to  every  study  only  so  much  time  as  it  can  profitably 


*  Letter  read  at  a  meeting  of  the  five  Humanistic  Associations,  January 
9,    1919. 


LATIN   AND   GREEK  105 

Fair  Play  For  Classics 

What  then  is  needed  in  order  to  bring  about  the  result  we 
desire?  First,  such  modifications  in  the  examinations  for 
scholarships  at  the  Universities  as  will  remove  the  temptation 
to  excessive  specialisation  at  schools.  Next,  a  willingness  on 
the  part  of  the  friends  of  classics  to  make  economies  of  time  in 
order  to  allow  room  for  other  subjects.  Thirdly,  a  willingness 
on  the  part  of  advocates  of  other  subjects  to  allow  fair  play  to 
classics.  So  far  as  the  making  of  economies  is  concerned,  a 
committee  of  the  Classical  Association  is  now  sitting  to  consider 
how  they  can  best  be  effected  in  the  case  of  Greek.  But  there 
is  another  side  to  this  question,  which  has  not  yet  been  touched 
on,  and  raises  in  an  acute  form  the  claim  of  fair  play  for 
classics.  In  the  controversies  with  regard  to  classics  the  dispu- 
tants have  almost  invariably  had  in  mind  the  public  schools  in 
which  classics  are  firmly  and  even  predominantly  established. 
But  there  is  a  far  larger  class  of  secondary  schools  in  which 
classics  lead  a  very  precarious  existence.  In  the  municipal  and 
other  secondary  schools  throughout  the  country,  in  which  an 
increasing  proportion  of  the  population  will  in  future  be  educated, 
the  proportions  existing  in  the  older  schools  are  completely 
reversed.  Science  is  here  entrenched  and  protected  by  compul- 
sion and  encouraged  by  public  opinion.  Latin,  and  still  more 
Greek,  are  regarded  as  ornamental  and  probably  useless 
excrescences. 

In  schools  such  as  these  the  need  is  to  claim  for  the  pupils 
who  attend  them  an  element  of  culture  to  which  they  are  entitled 
and  which  they  are  in  danger  of  losing.  Greek  and  Latin  being 
what  we  have  seen  them  to  be,  the  foundation  and  inspiration  of 
all  our  modern  culture,  and  possessing  what  we  have  seen  them 
to  possess,  a  good  half  of  the  finest  literature  of  the  world,  they 
should  not  remain  the  special  preserve  of  one  social  class  in  the 
community.  The  classics,  and  especially  Greek,  should  be  the 
possession,  not  of  the  social  aristocracy  of  the  country  but  of  the 
intellectual  aristocracy.  There  is  no  reason  why  this  intellectual 
aristocracy  should  be  confined  to  the  comparatively  wealthy.    It 


io6  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

is  for  the  working  classes,  now  that  they  are  rising  to  fuller 
power  and  more  articulate  expression,  to  claim  their  right  of 
access  to  this  mine  of  intellectual  wealth. 

The  Claim  of  the  Working  Classes 

Fortunately  there  are  signs  that  they  will  do  so.  At  a  recent 
deputation  to  the  President  of  the  Board  of  Education,^  Mr. 
A.  Mansbridge,  the  founder  and  inspirer  of  that  excellent  move- 
ment, the  Workers'  Educational  Association,  used  the  following 
words : — 

"Working  people  are  displaying  an  increasing  interest  in  such 
subjects  as  Greek  Democracy  and  Greek  Moral  Political 
Thought.  .  .  It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  there  are  to-day 
many  working  people  in  all  parts  of  the  country  who  associate 
the  name  of  Greece  with  the  cause  of  humanism,  and  who  eagerly 
seize  every  opportunity  of  extending  their  acquaintance  with 
classical  civiUsation."  Of  proposals  which  would  confine  the 
knowledge  of  Greek  to  the  well-to-do  he  said,  "That  obviously 
would  be  an  injustice  which  working  men  and  women,  developing 
as  they  are  in  appreciation  of  education,  would  not  tolerate  for 
one  moment.  .  .  I  should  like  to  see  a  redistribution  of  the 
opportunities  for  classical  studies.  .  .  I  do  not  wish  scholar- 
ship to  be  confined  to  those  who  are  able  to  give  their  lives  to  it ; 
I  want  men  engaged  in  all  occupations  to  have  the  opportunity 
of  developing  it.  I  hope  the  day  may  come  when  a  working  man 
may  be  able  to  enjoy  Homer  in  the  original,  and  excite  no  more 
comment  than  his  enjoyment  of  Shakespeare  does  now.  Why 
should  it?" 

This  is  no  fantastic  ideal,  but  one  that  comes  well  within  the 
range  of  such  a  reconstruction  of  our  national  life  as  we  are 
now  contemplating.  What  is  required  is  that  in  every  educa- 
tional area  there  should  be  facilities  for  the  learning  of  Latin 
and  Greek,  and  that  boys  and  girls  who  show  signs  of  linguistic 
capacity  and  literary  taste  should  have  these  gifts  encouraged. 
For  those  who  have  them  it  is  no  very  great  or  hard  matter  to 
acquire  such  a  knowledge  of  Greek  as  may  enable  them  to  enjoy 
the  easier  authors  after  a  two  years'  course  of  istudy,  and  even 
the  harder  ones  with  the  aid  of  a  translation.     A  committee  of 

*  On  April  27,  19 17.  Reported  in  full  in  the  Proceedings  of  the 
Classical  Association,   Vol.   XV.,   p.    S-40.    . 


LATIN   AND   GREEK  I07 

the    Classical   Association   has   just   been    engaged   in    drafting 
such  a  course. 

Modern  intellectual  civilisation  owes  its  rise  to  the  recovery 
of  Greek  literature  at  the  Renaissance.  It  v^ould  be  tragic  if, 
at  the  moment  when  the  nation  has  risen  to  the  height  of  its 
great  ordeal  in  virtue  of  its  maintenance  of  those  high  spiritual 
ideals  which  ancient  literature  does  so  much  to  foster,  it  should 
put  out  of  its  life  the  source  and  mainspring  of  its  intellectual 
inspiration.  The  classics  are  a  heritage  to  be  cherished,  not 
to  the  exclusion  of  other  worthy  and  necessary  subjects,  but  as 
an  essential  element  with  them,  in  the  full  culture  on  which  a 
noble  national  life  can  be  nurtured  and  maintained. 


THE  VALUE  OF  THE  STUDY  OF  LATIN  AND 
GREEK 1 

In  the  gray  dawn  of  history  Parmenides,  a  Greek,  wrote  a 
philosophical  poem  which  he  divided  into  two  parts.  The  first 
part  was  dedicated  to  truth,  the  second  to  opinion.  No  more 
fruitful  division  of  human  notions  has  ever  been  devised  than 
this  of  the  early  Greek  thinker. 

A  small  realm  in  which  matters  are  settled  unalterably,  where 
disputes  can  no  longer  rage,  where  we  must  conform  to  the 
'facts  and  gain  much  by  doing  so,  this  small  realm  is  that  of  the 
truth,  for  which  "brows  have  ached  and  souls  toiled  and  striven." 
It  is  so  precious  that  even  a  counterfeit  of  it  is  valuable.  Its 
faculty  of  settling  disputes  is  such  an  economy  that  we  delegate 
that  power  to  men  of  all  sorts,  clothe  them  with  a  specious  in- 
fallibility and  say  to  them,  "Decide,  in  order  that  delay  and  hesi- 
tation may  cease.  Better  progress  in  the  wrong  direction  than  no 
progress  at  all.  Better  graft  than  anarchy."  In  this  way  we 
have  doubtless  enthroned  more  error  than  we  have  discovered 
truth,  but  the  economy  justifies  the  method  in  most  cases. 

An  enormous  realm  in  which  affairs  are  not  settled  but  in 
constant  change,  where  disputes  rage  and  the  individual's  gain 
is  proportional  to  his  vociferation,  where  every  one  who  can  do 

^  Prof.  Lawrence  W.  Cole,  Director  of  the  School  of  Social  and  Home 
Service,  University  of  Colorado.  University  of  Colorado  Bulletin.  14:9-15. 
September,    19 14. 


io8  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

so  must  take  more  than  he  is  entitled  to,  must  "stake  out"  more 
land  than  he  can  possibly  cultivate  lest  the  turn  of  the  tide 
wash  much  of  it  away,  where  one  conforms  chiefly  to  his  own 
desires  and  the  appeal  is  to  "man's  unconquerable  soul";  this 
is  the  realm  of  opinion  and  many  of  the  most  important  human 
concerns  belong  to  this  realm.  Opinion,  however,  does  two 
good  things.  It  breeds  first  partisans,  then  experiments. 
Credimus  experto. 

Education  being  an  important  human  concern,  no  question 
concerning  it  can  finally  escape  either  stage  of  this  evolution 
from  opinion  to  truth.  Every  item  of  educational  opinion  will 
first  divide  men  into  two  parties.  If  the  problem  can  be  factored 
into  its  elements,  each  elementary  question  can  usually  be 
promptly  tested  by  experiment  and  from  the  result  of  such 
analytical  experiments  there  is  no  escape.    Their  results  are  true. 

If  the  problem  can  not  be  factored  the  partisans  themselves 
become  the  experimenters.  This  is  unfortunate,  for  a  partisan 
is  not  likely  to  weigh  all  the  evidence  justly.  There  is,  however, 
no  escape  from  experimenting.  Courses  of  study  are  framed 
in  the  Hght  of  the  framers'  opinions.  If  they  are  men  in 
authority,  even  methods  of  teaching  must  conform  to  their  rules, 
and  all  this  continues  until  time  brings  a  change  in  the  school 
administration,  for  a  partisan  rarely  changes  his  mind.  We 
must  admit,  however,  that  as  long  as  educators  and  the  public 
hold  opinions  school  instruction  must  be  a  series  of  wholesale, 
social  experiments ;  wholesale  in  the  sense  that  problems  are  not 
attacked  by  analysis  or  piecemeal,  but  that  you  must  judge  a 
method  or  a  study  by  its  total  results  or  its  statistical  outcome; 
and  too  frequently  no  statistics  are  kept,  not  even  the  intel- 
lectual death  rate. 

The  steps  or  stages  from  opinion  to  truth  are,  therefore,  three : 

(a)  Partisanship  of  a  platform  or  theory; 

(b)  Wholesale  experiment  with  a  possible  statistical  result; 

(c)  Analytical  experiment  in  which  each  factor  is  studied 
separately. 

I.  The  partisans  of  Latin  and  Greek  have  urged  that  these 
subjects  are  excellent  disciplines  of  a  liberal  education  and  a 
splendid  preparation  for  professional  and  technical  training. 

The  opposite  party  has  claimed  either  that  there  is  no  such 
thing  as  discipline  or  that  one  study  is  quite  as  good  as  another 
for  mental  training.     Therefore,  no  attention  need  be  paid  to 


LATIN   AND   GREEK  109 

discipline;  and  for  information,  the  classics  should  be  read  in 
translation. 

In  this  state  of  opinion  the  only  course  possible  is  to  examine 
the  competence  and  credibility  of  the  witnesses.  If  my  sources 
of  information  are  correct,  Lord  Kelvin,*  Karl  Pearson,  John 
Stuart  Mill,  Matthew  Arnold,  Bryce,  Lowell,  Barrett  Wendell, 
Professor  Grandgent,  Brunetiere  and  Anatole  France,  all  believe 
in  the  classics  as  a  training  for  the  scholar.  I  omit  all  who  are 
professionally  interested  in  Latin  and  Greek,  even  the  great 
Jebb  and  Jowett. 

Just  as  sincere  partisans  on  the  other  side  are  Descartes,  Her- 
bert Spencer,  David  Starr  Jordan,  and  Stanley  Hall.  Here  I 
omit  the  names  of  persons  professionally  interested  in  some  new 
subject  to  displace  the  classics. 

So  far  as  disinterested  opinion  goes,  therefore,  there  is  a 
clear  balance  in  favor  of  the  boy's  studying  Latin  and  Greek 
An  high  school  as  a  preparation  for  the  future  work.  Those  who 
'recommend  such  study  are  scholars  of  the  first  rank. 

2.  Relative  to  Greek  and  Latin,  however,  we  have  made  a 
wholesale  experiment.  With  the  introduction  of  the  newer 
studies  and  elective  courses  in  high  schools  we  changed  from 
classical  training  and  we  may  now  compare  the  result  of  the 
new  with  the  old.  For  the  purpose  of  this  comparison,  let  me 
quote  professors  Wendell  and  Grandgent.  None  are  better 
observers  and  none  have  had  better  opportunity  to  compare  the 
two  conditions. 

Professor  Wendell'  writes  as  follows: — 

"It  seems  to  me,  as  the  newer  educational  notions  have  sup- 
planted- the  elder  at  schools  which  fit  boys  for  college,  those  boys 
prove,  when  they  get  to  college,  flabbier  and  flabbier  in  mind." 

"A  satisfactorily  educated  man  distinguishes  himself  from  an 
uneducated  one  chiefly  because,  for  general  purposes,  his 
faculties  are  better  under  his  control.  An  educated  man,  in 
short,  when  confronted  with  new  or  unexpected  problems  can 
generally  use  his  wits  better  than  an  uneducated  one.  Here  we 
are  on  purely  practical  ground.  The  simple  question  becomes 
one  of  plain  fact,  not  of  prejudice.  What  kind  of  education 
makes   people   most    frequently   efficient    for   general   purposes? 

^  See  Shorey,  Paul.  The  Case  for  the  Classics..  The  School  Review. 
Volume   XVIII,    i9fo. 

2  Wendell,  Barrett.  Our  National  Superstition.  North  Amer.  Rev.,  Vol- 
ume CLXXIX,  1904,  page  388  ff. 


no  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

Honestly  answering  this,  though  I  am  myself  a  professor'  of  a 
radical  and  practical  subject,  I  am  bound  to  say  that  purely 
practical  considerations  go  far  to  justify  the  old  system  of 
classics  and  mathematics  in  comparison  with  anything  newer." 

This  is  the  verdict  of  a  professor  of  English,  after  twenty 
years'   observation   of   the   "elective"    and   "no-classics"    regime. 

Professor  Grandgent,*  who  has  charge  of  Romance  Languages 
and  has  had  an  equal  opportunity  to  observe  the  experiment  is 
more  emphatic  than  Professor  Wendell.     He   calls  the  present  ' 
the  "dark  ages"  of  scholarship,  and  writes  thus : — 

"Another  prevalent  fallacy,  which  has  found  favor  even  in 
high  quarters,  is  the  belief  that  for  the  training  of  the  young, 
one  subject  is  just  as  good  as  another.  This  is  surely  on  the 
face  of  it  an  amazing  doctrine  to  promulgate:  it  runs  counter 
to  all  traditional  and,  so  far  as  I  am  aware,  to  all  contemporary 
experience.  One  would  think  the  burden  of  proof  should  rest 
on  its  confessors.  Yet  they  have  offered  not  a  shred  of  evidence 
— nothing  but  bald  assertion.  And  on  the  basis  of  this  empty 
vociferation  school  programs  and  college  admission  requirements 
are  overturned.  Perhaps,  our  age  has  furnished  no  better 
example  than  this  of  its  sheeplike  sequacity.  We,  here  present, 
are  nearly  all  of  us  teachers,  and  as  competent  as  anybody  to 
testify  in  this  case ;  and  I  venture  to  say  there  is  not  one  among 
us  who  has  not  observed,  in  students  who  have  pursued  v/idely 
different  studies,  a  corresponding  difference  in  general  aptitude. 
It  does  not  stand  to  reason  that  algebra '  should  develop  the 
same  faculties  as  free-hand  drawing,  or  Greek  the  same  as  black- 
smithing.  Problably  the  greatest  divergence  in  the  educational 
value  of  studies  is  due  to  the  varying  degree  to  which  they 
require  concentration,  judgment,  observation,  and  imagination. 
Some  occupations  can  be  pursued  with  tolerable  success  while 
the  mind  is  wandering;  others,  like  arithmetic  and  algebra, 
demand  close  and  constant  attention.  Some  can  be  carried  on 
by  an  almost  mechanical  process,  others,  like  Greek  and  Latin, 
call  for  continual  reasoning  and  the  application  of  general 
principles  to  particular  cases.  Some  exact  little  of  the  mind 
but  much  of  the  eye." 

"The  fallacy  just  defined  is  closely  related  to  another  which 
it  has  used  to  support :  namely,  the  doctrine  that  all  study  must 

1  Grandgent,  C.  H.  The  Dark  Ages.  Pub.  Mod.  Lang.  Assn.  of  Amer., 
Volume  XXVIII,    19 13. 


LATIN   AND  GREEK  in 

be  made  agreeable  to  the  student.  More  and  more  the  difficult 
subjects  have  been  replaced  by  easier  ones,  and  these  have  been 
made  easier  yet  by  the  extraction  of  obstacles  and  the  invention 
of  painless  methods.  Grammarless  modern  languages,  delatin- 
ized  Latin,  simplified  mathematics  omit  the  very  features  that 
make  study  valuable.  Predigested  foods  of  all  sorts  have  almost 
deprived  our  youth  of  the  power  to  use  their  teeth." 

Add  to  these  observations  the  fact  that  many  professors  of 
physics  and  chemistry  prefer  that  their  students  should  not  have 
studied  those  subjects  in  high  school,  but  would  rather  they 
had  studied  Latin  and  Greek. 

Again  the  Department  of  English  of  Harvard  University  has 
been  importuned  for  years  to  set  a  requirement  for  admission 
called  "Advanced  English,"  which  should  be  equivalent  to  the 
'high-school  training  in  Latin  and  Greek.  This  the  professors 
(have  refused  to  do  because  no  study  of  English  could  be  made 
the  equivalent  of  classical  study  as  a  preparation  for  students 
of  English. 

The  University  of  California  begs  the  high  schools  to  offer 
Greek  to  prospective  students  of  English  because  they  too  can 
find  no  substitute  for  it. 

Physicians  who  have  no  knowledge  of  Greek  urge  medical 
students  to  elect  that  language  for  the  sake  of  understanding 
medical  and  scientific  terms. 

May  I  add  my  own  impressions  to  all  this  testimony?  It  is 
my  duty  to  teach  the  elements  of  psychology  to  large  classes  of 
sophomores  in  college.  Despite  many  simple  experiments  and 
the  newer  methods  of  instruction,  the  subject  is  still  somewhat 
abstract.  I  can  not  transfix  the  mind  on  a  dissecting  needle  and 
pass  it  around  for  inspection  as  one  might  a  cockroach  or  a 
butterfly.  Consequently,  students  find  that  the  subject  does  not 
disclose  its  secrets  without  considerable  study. 

The  difficulty,  so  far  as  I  can  define  it,  lies  in  this.  Besides 
learning  to  see  objects,  the  student  must  learn  to  make  nice  but 
definite  discriminations,  must  form  certain- general  notions,  and 
must,  above  all  things,  learn  to  detect  relations.  Now  analysis, 
generalization,  and  relational  thinking  are  developed  and  trained 
above  all  things  else  by  the  study -of  Latin  and  Greek.  For 
this  reason,  your  classicist  is  always  an  educated  man.  He 
finds  in  psychology  a  subject  both  of  training  and  information, 
and  he  promptly  goes  to  the  deeper  levels  of  that  information. 


112  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

Others  obtain  as  much  information  from  the  subject  as  their 
previous  training  and  their  industry  permit. 

One  more  wholesale  experiment  may  be  mentioned.  The 
Germans,  quite  untroubled  by  our  elective  courses  and  disputes, 
demand  six  hours  per  week  of  Greek  for  six  years,  and  almost 
twice  as  much  Latin  in  their  gymnasium  courses.  The  Latin 
is  required  even  in  the  real-gymnasia.^ 

The  collective  experiments  of  twenty  years  with  elective 
courses  and  the  newer  subjects  of  instruction  have  not  produced 
as  good  results  as  the  instruction  of  the  period  just  preceding. 
Consequently,  the  elective  course  has  been  dropped  everywhere, 
and  especially  in  the  high  schools.  Almost  every  claim  made 
in  its  favor  proved  false.  The  evidence  I  have  reviewed  shows, 
I  think,  that  high-school  students  would  be  immensely  benefited 
by  a  return  to  the  study  of  Latin  and  Greek.  These  studies 
were  condemned  for  the  sake  of  the  elective  course.  That  having 
failed  disastrously,  the  classics  should  now  be  tried  on  their 
merits. 

3.  Is  the  claim  true  or  false  that  Latin  and  Greek  afford  intel- 
lectual discipline?  Not  analytical  experiments  but  group  experi- 
ments have  tried  to  answer  this  question,  and  with  varying 
results.  For  centuries  plain  men  and  scholars  believed  in  the 
existence  of  such  a  thing  as  intellectual  discipline.  They  thought 
they  observed  the  decay  of  mental  powers  when  they  were  not 
used.  »The  visual  region  of  Laura  Bridgeman's  brain  had  within 
it  millions  of  undeveloped  cells.  It  seemed  reasonable  to  sup- 
pose that  the  similar  undeveloped  cells  to  be  found  in  all  brains 
might  be  due  in  turn  to  the  absence  of  stimuli,  the  lack  of 
cultivation. 

However,  the  first  group-experiments  designed  to  measure 
the  effect  of  discipline  and  the  amount  of  its  transfer  failed  to 
find  transfer.  Hence  transfer  was  denied  and  the  existence  of 
such  a  thing  as  discipline  gravely  doubted. 

Soon  the  experiments  were  seized  upon  by  writers  on  educa- 
tion and  made  to  bolster  up  the  doctrine  of  interest,  or  any 
other  theory  or  fad  in  which  the  writers  might  believe. 

Now  we  know  that  the  wrong  conclusion  was  drawn  from 
the  experiments.  The  conclusion  should  have  been  not  that 
transfer  does  not  occur,  but  that  the  method  used  was  too  cnide 

■^  Lexis,  W.  History  and  Organisation  of  Public  Education  in  the  Ger- 
man Empire.     Berlin,   1904,  page  56. 


LATIN   AND   GREEK  113 

to  detect  it.  Careful  individual  experiments  have  recently  been 
made  and  Ebert  and  Meumann/  Coover  and  Angell,^  Winch,* 
Bennett,*  Fracker''  and  others  have  found  transfer  of  discipline 
in  marked  degree.  The  doctrine  of  "no-transfer"  is  exploded' 
and  if  its  former  advocates  do  not  admit  the  explosion  openly 
they  do   so   tacitly  in   their   recent  writings. 

There  is  positive  -transfer,  i.  e.,  increase  of  one  mental  ability 
by  training  another,  and  in  some  cases,  negative  transfer,  or 
decrease  in  some  ability  due  to  long  exercise  of  others,  and  this, 
I  believe,  was  exactly  the  opinion  held  by  sensible  men  before  the 
cry  of  "no-transfer"  was  raised.  Once  it  was  raised  it  was  used 
to  bolster  up  the  most  extravagant  claims  of  all  sorts  of 
educators.  One  teacher  of  education  denied  even  the  fact  of 
training  of  special  mental  powers  by  their  own  exercise.  It  was 
all  a  beautiful  example  of  loading  the  negative  results  of  hasty 
group  experiments  with  positive  conclusions,  for  which  "scientific 
accuracy"  was  claimed. 

The  claims  of  Latin  and  Greek  rest  so  much  on  a  belief  in 
their  disciplinary  value  that  the  "no-transfer"  propaganda  was 
^  almost  the  last  nail  in  the  coffin  of  the  classics.  The  worst  effect 
is  that  discipline  has  no  longer  been  aimed  at  in  high  schools, 
by  either  teachers  or  pupils.  The  course  of  study  has  as  often 
been  a  melange  of  novelties  as  a  group  of  subjects  whose  mastery 
required  industry.  Little  wonder  that  Professor  Grandgent 
calls  our  educational  present  "The  Dark  Ages." 

^  Archiv.   f.d.   gesamte  Psychologic.    IV,    1904. 

-  Amer.  J.   of  Psych.    XVIII,   1907. 

3  Winch,  W.  H.    Brit.  J.  of  Psych.    II,   1908. 

•*  Bennett,    C.   J.     Formal   Discipline,    N.    Y.    1907. 

^  Fracker,   G.    C.     Psych.    Rev.   Monog.     Supp.     IX,    1907. 

*  Recently  British  psychologists  have  renewed  the  attack  on  the  problem 
and  with  refined  mathematical  methods.  All  but  one  of  the  investigators 
find  a  greater  per  cent  of  correlation  than  can  be  ascribed  to  chance  or 
error.  Moreover,  the  correlations  arrange  themselves  in  a  hierarchy,  thus 
giving  evidence,  the  authors  say,  of  a  "common  fund  of  energy"  or  gen- 
eral intelligence  which  may  be  exercised  in  a  variety  of  types  of  rnental 
work.  This  is  a  startling  return  to  an  old  belief.  Yet  it  must  still  be 
emphasized  that  neither  the  experimental  method  used  in  testing  for  cor- 
relation nor  the  mathematical  treatment  of  the  results  is  well  enough 
established  to  justify  its  use  as  a  foundation  for  educational  dogma.  To 
this  opinion  the  British  investigators  subscribe.  But  if  the  method  is 
still  not  adequately  verified,  what  shall  we  say  of  the  crude  experiments 
of  fifteen  years  ago?  Their  use  suggests  vividly  the  remark  of  Hodgson: 
"Whatever  you  are  totally  ignorant  of  assert  to  be  the  explanation  of 
everything  else."  This  is,  of  course,  quackery  in  education,  as  it  was 
in  philosophy,  but  the  quackery  has  worked  too  well.  We  surely  need 
to  discriminate  between  the  educational  mountebank  and  the  expert  in 
education.  In  the  present  state  of  our  knowledge  the  latter  is  characterized 
by  the   fact   that   he,   first   of   all,   avoids    doing  great  harm. 


114  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

BRIEF  EXCERPTS 

All  the  available  information  shows  that  the  classical  gen- 
erally surpass  the  non-classical  students  in  school  and  college 
studies.    Andrew  F.  West,  The  Value  of  the  Classics,  p.  17. 

Of  Latin  derivation  are  from  60  to  75  per  cent  of  all  the 
words  in  an  unabridged  English  dictionary.  Why  the  full  Latin 
requirements  should  be  kept,  p.  8. 

It  seems  quite  safe  to  predict  that  no  culture  will  ever  be 
considered  broad  and  deep  unless  it  rests  upon  an  understanding 
and  appreciation  of  the  civilizations  of  Greece  and  Rome. 
Nicholas  Murray  Butler,  The  Meaning  of  Education,  p.   173. 

Latin  still  constitutes  the  most  thoroughly  ordered  and 
synthesized  body  of  knowledge  in  the  modern  world,  and  hence 
the  best  of  all  known  studies  for  building  an  ordered  mind. 
W.  H.  P.  Faunce,  Practical  Value  of  Latin,  p.  31. 

The  thorough  investigation  of  the  New  Testament  in  its 
history  and  meaning  must  forever  rest  on  a  knowledge  of  the 
Greek  language.  William  D.  McKenzie,  Practical  Value  of 
Latin,  p.   16. 

A  sober  reflection  on  the  history  of  the  ancient  republics 
might  put  us  on  guard  against  many  of  the  dangers  to  which 
we  ourselves  are  exposed.  Irving  Babbitt,  Literature  and  the 
American  College,  p.  171. 

I  am  most  thoroughly  in  favor  of  Classical  studies,  and  my 
opinion  is  based  not  only  upon  my  own  experience  but  upon 
the  general  history  of  education.  John  Grier  Hibben,  Practical 
Value  of  Latin,  p.  30.  ^. 

So  far  as  our  experience  has  gone,  we  have  not  discovered 
a  means  for  the  development  of  intellectual  maturity  comparable 
with  the  study  of  Latin  and  Greek.  Rush  Rhees,  Practical 
Value  of  Latin,  p.  30. 


LATIN   AND   GREEK  115 

The  principal  function  of  education,  as  it  seems  to  many 
thinking  people,  is  so  to  train  the  youth  that  they  may  find  in 
their  minds  and  in  their  tastes  a  perennial  source  of  satisfaction 
and  enjoyment.  Classical  Weekly  {editorial)  3:121,  Feb.  12, 
1910. 

Nothing  but  a  tolerable  familiarity  with  Latin  roots  can 
prevent  stupid  misuse  of  words  derived  from  Latin.  History 
and  common  sense  combine  to  make  Latin  the  only  sound 
foundation  of  literary  English.  Barrett  Wendell,  The  Relation 
of  Latin  to  Practical  Life,  p.  30. 

Latin  and  Greek  are  the  sub-structure  not  only  of  most 
words  we  use,  but  that  also  classical  literature  contains  the 
basic  principles  of  philosophy,  law,  science,  history,  and,  in 
short,  of  civilization  itself.  Editorial,  Buffalo  Times,  July  12, 
1920. 

No  student  can  go  far  in  the  study  of  any  Romance  language 
without  a  knowledge  of  Latin.  There  is  very  little  Romance 
literature  whose  full  flavor  can  be  perceived  and  relished  by 
the  student  who  knows  neither  Latin  nor  Greek.  Caroline  S. 
Sheldon,  Outlook   107:288  June  6,   1914. 

Among  the  advocates  of  classical  studies  have  been  nearly 
all  the  great  critics  of  the  nineteenth  century,  from  Goethe, 
Coleridge  and  Sainte-Beuve  to  Brunetiere,  Anatole  France,  Le- 
maitre,  Faguet,  Doumic,  Lowell,  and  Arnold.  Paul  Shorey, 
Atlantic  Monthly  119:799  June  1917. 

For  the  mass  of  English  speaking  men,  rare  spirits  excepted, 
the  best  use  of  EngHsh  is  not  attained  without  knowing  the 
sources  whence  our  mother  tongue  draws  its  life.  Nearly  half 
if  it  is  Latin.  The  better  we  know  Latin,  then,  the  better  our 
use  of  English.  Dean  Andrew  F.  West,  The  Value  of  the 
Classics,  />.  29. 

A  mastery  of  the  literature  and  the  history  of  the  ancient 
world  makes  everyone  fitter  to  excel  than  he  would  have  been 


ii6  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

without  it,  for  it  widens  the  horizon,  it  sets  standards  unlike  our 
own,  it  sharpens  the  edge  of  critical  discrimination,  it  suggests 
new  lines  of  constructive  thought.  James  Bryce,  Practical  Value 
of  Latin,  p.  21. 

In  addition  to  the  mental  discipline  which  study  of  them  (the 
ancient  classics)  affords,  they  are  the  most  helpful  in  the  matter 
of  correct  English  style,  in  laying  sound  foundations  for  gram- 
matical construction,  and  in  furnishing  a  basis  for  the  study 
of  all  Modern  Languages.  William  H.  Taft,  Practical  Value 
of  Latin,  p.  21. 

Modern  customs  are  so  directly  the  outgrowth  of  ancient 
ones,  and  modern  politics  and  philosophy  so  intimately  connected 
with  the  spirit  of  the  Greek  and  the  Roman,  that  there  is  no 
adequate  appreciation  of  the  one  without  some  more  or  less 
familiar  knowledge  of  the  other.  Edward  P.  Davis,  Education 
32:55  Sept.  191 1. 

Much  of  our  law  comes  from  the  Roman  times  and  so 
many  of  our  legal  maxims  are  phrased  in  the  Latin  language 
that  to  a  lawyer  a  knowledge  of  Latin  is  peculiarly  important  and 
helpful.  Greek  has  been  of  more  value  to  me  by  reason  of  the 
training  it  gave  me  in  a  proper  interpretation  of  words  and 
phrases  than  in  the  practical  use  of  the  language  itself.  A 
Mitchell  Palmer,  Practical  Value  of  Latin,  p.  20. 

Latin  literature  furnishes  the  supreme  niodel  for  a  straight- 
forward, concise  and  logical  style.  It  teaches  any  appreciative 
student  close  thinking  and  direct  expression.  Greek  civilization 
is  the  source  of  love  for  beauty  and  refinement.  I  believe  that 
only  when  equipped  with  some  knowledge  and  recollection  of 
the  Classics  can  a  good  editor  do  his  best  work.  Ellery  Sedg- 
wick, Practical  Value  of  Latin,  p.  24. 

A  good  knowledge  of  the  English  language  requires  a  fair 
understanding  of  Greek,  but  not  of  French  or  German.  Com- 
pound words,  new  and  old,  come  from  the  Greek.  The  new 
words   of   science  and   medicine   are   Greek.     One  who  knows 


LATIN   AND   GREEK  117 

Greek  does  not  need  to  look  them  out  in  the  dictionary  to  find 
that  the  Appendix  has  not  yet  discovered  them.  Independent 
(editorial)  35:1009,  Aug.  9,  1883. 

Every  public  high  school  and  academy  in  the  country, 
practically  without  ex:ception,  offers  instruction  in  it;  and 
according  to  the  general  testimony  of  the  school  examiners 
who  are  sent  out  by  the  large  universities  to  pass  upon  the 
quality  of  instruction  given  in  the  several  subjects  accepted  for 
admission  to  college,  Latin  and  mathematics  are  the  two  subjects 
in  which  the  instruction  is  most  likely  to  be  found  satisfactory. 
Andrew  F.  West,  The  Value  of  the  Classics,  p.  360. 

Biological  chemistry  is  practically  written  in  the  Greek 
language.  The  language  of  botany  is  essentially  Latin  in  so  far 
as  the  names  of  the  plants  are  concerned,  and  Greek  in  the 
names  which  deal  ,with  the  anatomy  of  the  plants  and  their 
organs.  The  language  of  mathematics  is  largely  Greek — the 
language  of  medicine,  Greek  and  Latin  combined.  The  common 
language  of  the  home  is  largely  Latin  and  Greek.  Dr.  Harvey 
W.  Wiley,  Practical  Value  of  Latin,  p.  26. 

The  foes  of  the  classics  have  been  the  most  enthusiastic 
advocates  of  thorough  instruction  in  English.  It  is  as  clear  as 
day  that  the  most  exhaustive  study  of  English  must  be  deficient 
if  it  is  not  based  on  some  knowledge  of  Latin  and  Greek.  No 
persistent  work  in  English  can  supply  this  want,  and  there  must 
be  many  a  blank  space  or  hiatus  in  the  knowledge  of  the  English 
scholar  whose  training  is  in  English  alone.  Cleveland  Plain 
Dealer,  {editorial)  June  6,  1917. 

Careful  daily  translation  develops  a  fine  feeling  for  syno- 
nyms and  requires  the  exercise  of  good  judgment  and  taste  in 
their  selection.  It  causes  the  pupil  to  acquire  a  sense  for  form 
and  style,  and  trains  him  to  express  himself  with  clearness  and 
precision.  By  reason  of  their  inherent  differences  in  thought- 
forms  from  our  own  tongue^  the  classical  languages  serve  these 
ends  to  an  unusual  degree  of  efficiency.  Edward  P,  Davis, 
Education  32:54  Sept.  191 1. 


ii«  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

I  have  taught  law  in  four  different  Law  Schools  and,  with 
some  care  and  much  interest,  have  looked  into  the  pre-legal 
education  of  students  in  each  of  the  Schools  wherein  I  have 
taught.  What  I  have  learned  in  this  way  has  produced  a  strong 
impression  that  students  who  come  to  the  Law  School  with  a 
good  linguistic  training,  especially  those  who  have  had  good 
training  in  the  Classics,  other  things  being  equal,  have  an 
aavantage  and  do  better  work  from  the  beginning.  Roscoe 
Pound,  Practical   Value   of  Latin,  p.  g. 

What  is  tremendously  significant  is  the  discovery  by  the 
faculties  of  our  colleges  and  universities  that  a  Greekless  and  all 
but  Latinless  generation  of  students  is  not  equipped  to  enter 
fully  and  thoroughly  into  the  heritage  of  civilization  as  it  is 
handed  on  through  the  various  departments  of  higher  education. 
There  is  no  doubt  that  this  disquieting  experience  has  already 
brought  about  a  reaction  of  sentiment  in  the  college  world  in 
favor  of  Greek  and  Latin.  George  Norlin,  University  of 
Colorado  Bulletin  14:5,  Sept.  1914. 

The  study  of  Latin  and  Greek  contributes  to  the  student's 
command  of  English  thru  the  enlargement  of  his  vocabulary, 
and  the  enrichment  of  it  in  synonyms  expressing  the  finer 
shades  of  meaning;  thru  his  acquaintance  with  the  original  or 
underlying  meanings  of  words,  thru  his  familiarity  with  the 
principles  of  word  formation,  and  thru  the  insight  into  the 
structure  of  the  English  language  afforded  by  a  mastery  of 
the  Latin.  Francis  IV.  Kelsey,  Educational  Review  33:65 
Jan.  1907. 

The  average  high  school  graduate  who  has  studied  no  other 
language  than  English  cannot  even  understand  literary  English, 
much  less  use  it.  He  does  not  know  the  meaning  of  the  words, 
though  they  define  themselves  upon  their  faces  to  those  who 
have  had  a  very  little  knowledge  of  the  foundation  tongues.  I 
do  not  mean  the  nomenclature  of  botany  and  faunal  naturalism 
and  anatomy,  of  psychology  and  physical  science,  though  these 
are  easy  to  one  who  knows  a  little  Greek.  I  mean  ordinary 
words  one  floor  above  the  street.  Frederick  Irland,  Atlantic 
Monthly  124:48  July  1919. 


LATIN   AND   GREEK  119 

What  you  cannot  find  a  substitute  for  is  the  Classics  as 
literature;  and  there  can  be  no  first  hand  contact  with  that 
literature  if  you  will  not  master  the  grammar  and  the  syntax 
which  convey  its  subtle  power.  Your  enlightenment  depends 
on  the  company  you  keep.  You  do  not  know  the  world  until 
you  know  the  men  who  have  possessed  it  and  tried  its  wares 
before  you  were  ever  given  your  brief  run  upon  it.  And  there 
is  no  sanity  comparable  with  that  which  is  schooled  in  the 
thoughts  that  will  keep.  Woodrow  Wilson,  Practical  Value  of 
Latin,  p.  20-21. 

Latin  and  Greek  become  effective  as  educational  instruments 
in  at  least  seven  different  ways :  By  training  in  the  essentials 
of  scientific  methods — observation,  comparison,  generalization; 
By  making  our  own  language  intelligible  and  developing  the 
power  of  expression;  By  bringing  the  mind  into  contact  with 
literature  in  elemental  forms;  By  giving  insight  into  a  basic 
civilization;  By  cultivating  the  constructive  imagination;  By 
clarifying  moral  ideals,  and  stimulating  to  right  conduct;  By 
furnishing  means  of  recreation.  Francis  W.  Kelsey,  Educational 
Review  33  :62-3  Jan.  1907. 

The  question  whether  the  study  of  the  Classics  is  intrin- 
sically good  is  one  to  be  settled  by  experts,  and  the  testimony 
of  the  greatest  experts  is  that  the  Classics  form  one  of  the 
finest  intellectual  disciplines  known  in  the  history  of  education. 
On  no  other  supposition  is  it  possible  to  explain  the  cold,  hard 
fact  that  students  taking  Classics  are  on  the  whole  intellectually 
superior  to  the  others.  It  makes  no  difference  whether  this  is 
attributed  to  custom  or  not,  because  the  fact  that  it  is  the 
custom  for  the  more  intellectual  students  to  study  Classics  is 
merely  an  argument  in  favor  of  the  Classics.  Andrew  F.  West, 
Practical   Value   of  Latin,  p.   31. 

Classical  secondary  education  lays  a  broad  and  sure  founda- 
tion for  subsequent  special  courses  and  fits  the  recipient  to  take 
his  place  with  credit  as  well  in  the  professional  and  technical 
schools,  as  in  the  great  world  of  business,  and  this  after  the 
most  approved  fashion.  It  makes  youth  equal  to  the  duties  of 
their   time   and   station,    while   infusing   into   them   the   stamina 


120  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

to  share  fully  in  its  responsibilities.  To  elevate  character,  to 
ennoble  ideals,  to  secure  and  ensure  happiness,  to  give  sources 
of  influence  is  its  main  purpose.  The  scholarly  refinement  that 
is  its  fruit  adds  a  zest  and  a  charm  to  life.  Rev.  F.  X.  Reilly, 
S.  J.  St.  Mary's  College  Bulletin  12:9-10  Jan.  1916. 

Latin  and  Greek  are  not  dead  languages,  because  they  still 
convey  living  thoughts.  The  real  success  of  a  democracy — 
the  production  of  a  finer  manhood — depends  less  upon  mechanics 
than  upon  morale.  For  that  the  teachings  of  the  classics  are 
excellent.  They  have  a  bracing  and  a  steadying  quality.  They 
instill  a  sense  of  order  and  they  inspire  a  sense  of  admiration, 
both  of  which  are  needed  by  the  people — especially  the  plain 
people — of  a  sane  democracy.  The  classics  are  fresher,  younger, 
more  vital  and  encouraging,  than  most  modern  books.  They 
have  lessons  for  us  to-day — believe  me — great  words  for  the 
present  crisis  and  the  pressing  duty  of  the  hour.  Henry  Van 
Dyke,   Outlook   120:411   Nov.    13,   1918. 

It  is  with  feelings  of  gratitude  that  I  recall  the  day  of 
classical  study  with  its  rigorous  discipline.  The  most  of  my 
preparation  for  my  life-work  was  with  mathematics,  Greek, 
and  Latin,  and,  although  I  fear  that  I  could  not  place  an 
algebraic  equation  upon  the  board  or  conjugate  a  Greek  verb 
or  give  correctly  the  declension  of  a  Latin  noun,  yet  I  am 
confident  that  the  result  of  that  study  has  been  appreciable 
through  all  these  years,  and  that  nothing  could  have  given  me 
equal  mental  discipline  and  power. 

As  a  time-saver  and  as  a  sure  road  to  the  topmost  round  of 
all  things  that  require  strong,  critical,  and  clear  thinking,  I 
would  urge  the  patient^  and  untiring  study  of  the  Greek  and 
Latin  languages.  This  is  not  the  only  road,  but  it  is  the  best 
one.    James  R.  Day,  Outlook  107:957  Aug.  22,  1914. 

It  becomes,  therefore,  a  very  serious  question  what  the 
edifcational  instrumentalities  shall  be  that  are  to  provide  the 
next  generation  or  two  with  the  sort  of  discipline  and  training 
that  Greek,  Latin,  and  mathematics  provided  for  our  fathers 
and  for  many  of  us.  The  vague  discussion  of  what  are  called 
social  questions  will  not  discipline  or  train  anyone.  If  history 
be  regarded  as  something  quite  independent  of  chronology  and 


LATIN   AND   GREEK  121 

as  recording  merely  the  results  of  the  operation  of  economic 
law,  then  it,  too,  will  become  of  little  or  no  educational  value. 
Those  who  empty  out  of  philosophy  its  ancient  and  honorable 
content,  and  try  to  substitute  for  it  a  sort  of  checkered  pave- 
ment of  the  sciences,  are  engaged  in  agile  exercise,  but  they 
are  not  accomplishing  any  good  either  for  philosophy  or  for 
education.  Nicholas  Murray  Butler,  Educational  Review  54:178 
Sept,   1917. 

The  most  effective  means  for  acquiring  a  broad  and  thorough 
cultivation  of  the  mental  faculties  which  is  the  aim  of  all  true 
education  and  the  best  foundation  for  special  and  professional 
training,  is  recognized  to  be  the  full  and  accurate  study  of  the 
Latin  and  Greek  classics.  In  connection  with  these,  a  thorough 
training,  is  recognized  to  be  the  full  and  accurate  study  of  the 
literature,  together  with  a  comparative  study  of  the  English 
language   and   literature,   is   essential. 

The  analytical  study  of  language  and  letters  promotes  exact- 
ness of  thought,  delicacy  of  perception  and  facility  of  expression, 
by  the  constant  and  keen  exercise  of  judgment  and  taste,  as  well 
as  of  the  reasoning  powers.  In  this  regard,  the  languages  of 
ancient  Rome  and  Greece,  when  intelligently  and  seriously 
studied,  offer  greater  advantages  than  any  other.  They  are  also 
most  helpful  to  the  knowledge  of  our  mother  tongue.  Their 
structure  and  idiom,  so  remote  from  the  language  of  the  student, 
reveal  to  him  the  laws  of  thought  and  logic  and  demand  reflec- 
tion and  analysis  of  the  fundamental  relations  between  ideas 
and  expression;  they  exercise  him  in  exactness  of  conception  in 
grasping  the  author's  meaning  and  in  clearness  and  delicacy  of 
expression  in  clothing  that  thought  in  the  very  dissimilar  garb 
of  his  own  native  tongue.  Canisius  College  Catalogue  1919-20, 
p.  26. 

.  .  .  Thousands  of  people  have  testified  to  the  fact  that 
not  until  they  had  studied  a  second  language  did  English  gram- 
mar become  clear  to  them.  And  the  second  language  should  by 
all  means  be  Latin,  partly  because  of  the  completeness  of  its 
grammatical  apparatus,  but  chiefly  because  the  native  English 
sentence  was  first  made  orderly,  logical,  serviceable,  and  efficient 
under  the  influence  of  the  grammar  of  Latin  .  .  .  The 
management    of   clauses,    for   instance,    of    tense    sequence,    of 


122  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

indirect  discourse,  of  linking  apparatus,  of  position  and  preposi- 
tion— so  troublesome  in  writing  Englishes  learned  from  Latin 
as  a  matter  of  necessity ;  it  is  seldom  learned  thoroughly  through 
English  alone,  as  any  journalist  can  testify  or  illustrate.  .  . 
The  student  of  English,  devoid  of  Latin  and  Greek,  must 
pick  and  choose  his  reading  with  great  care  if  he  would  maintain 
his  interest  for  long.  .  .  He  will  find  whole  periods  of 
English  prose  impossible  and  much  of  English  verse  beyond 
his  imaginative  reach.  He  must  confine  himself  to  the  con- 
temporaneous, and  often  suffer  the  feeling  of  detachment  even 
there.  He  is  debarred  from  real  intellectual  sympathy  with  no 
inconsiderable  portion  of  nineteenth  century  prose  and  verse — 
to  mention  only  the  more  familiar  names,  with  portions  of 
Longfellow,  Lowell,  and  Emerson,  the  Arnolds,  the  Brownings, 
the  Morris,  Landor,  Keats,  Shelley,  Byron,  Tennyson,  Words- 
worth, Macaulay,  Newman,  George  Eliot,  Ruskin,  Rossetti,  Pater, 
and  even  Tom  Moore.  Joseph  V.  Denney,  Practical  Value  of 
Latin,  p.  32-3. 

It  is  to  be  feared  that  a  degenerating  process  has  been 
long  going  on  in  our  own  vernacular  tongue.  There  is  danger 
that  it  will  become  the  dialect  of  conceits,  of  pettinesses,  of 
dashing  coxcombry,  or  of  affected  strength  and  of  extravagant 
metaphor.  Preachers  as  well  as  writers  appear  to  regard  convul- 
sive force  as  the  only  quality  of  a  good  style.  They  seem  to 
imagine  that  the  human  heart  is,  in  all  its  moods,  to  be  carried 
by  storm.  Their  aim  is  the  production  of  immediate  practical 
effect.  Hence  there  is  a  struggle  for  the  boldest  figure  and  the 
most  passionate  oratory.  The  same  tendency  is  seen  in  the  hall 
of  legislation,  and  pre-eminently  in  much  of  our  popular  liter- 
ature. Passion,  over-statement,  rediculous  conceits,  the  introduc- 
tion of  terms  that  have  no  citizenship  in  any  language  on  earth, 
a  disregard  of  grammar,  an  affected  smartness,  characterize 
to  a  very  melancholy  degree  our  recent  literature.  To  be 
natural  is  to  be  antiquated.  To  use  correct  and  elegant  English 
is  to  plod.  Hesitancy  in  respect  to  the  adoption  of  some  new- 
fangled word  is  the  sure  sign  of  a  purist.  Such  writers  as 
Addison  and  Swift  are  not  to  be  mentioned  in  the  ears  of  our 
"enterprising"  age.  The  man  ol*  the  woman  who  should  be 
caught  reading  the  Spectator  would  be  looked  upon  as  smitted 
with  lunacy.     In  short  there  is  reason  to  fear  that  our  noble 


LATIN   AND   GREEK  123 

old  tongue  is  changing  into  a  dialect  for  traffickers,  magazine 
writers,  and  bedlamites. 

One  way  by  which  this  acknowledged  evil  may  be  stayed 
is  to  return  to  such  books  as  Milton,  Dryden,  and  Cowper  loved, 
to  such  as  breathed  their  spirit  into  the  best  literature  of  Eng- 
land, to  the  old  historians  and  poets  that  were  pondered  over 
from  youth  to  hoary  years  by  her  noblest  divines,  philosophers, 
and  statesmen.  Eloquence,  both  secular  and  sacred,  such  as 
the  English  world  has  never  listened  to  elsewhere,  has  flowed 
from  minds  that  were  imbued  with  classical  learning.  Sears, 
Edwards,  and  Felton,  Classical  Studies,  p.  xvii-iii. 

Modern  educators  agree  that,  while  training  the  mind  in 
one  direction  means,  first  of  all,  training  it  in  that  direction 
and  not  in  some  other,  transfer  from  one  field  to  another  is 
possible  whenever  there  are  ''identical  elements."  The  identity 
may  be  of  two  kinds:  (i)  identity  of  content  (substance)  — 
as  when  a  knowledge  of  mathematics  is  carried  over  to  physics ; 
(2)  identity  of  form  (method  or  procedure)^ — as  when  the 
mode  of  attack  used  in  one  language  is  applied  to  the  study 
of  another  language.  Under  the  second  heading  may  be  classed 
general  methods  of  technique  in  learning:  devices  of  grouping 
and  rhythm  which  help  in  memorizing;  ways  of  applying  the 
attention  and  invoking  the  aid  of  association ;  and  the  essentials 
of  the  reasoning  process,  which  may  be  transferred  from  one 
/body  of  facts  to  facts  in  a  wholly  unrelated  field. 

Theoretically,  any  subject  properly  taught  should  have  a 
broadening  effect  upon  the  student's  general  experience.  But 
in  actual  practice,  some  subjects  are  much  better  adapted  than 
others,  in  both  subject-matter  and  method,  to  general  training. 
E.  H.  Henderson,  Professor  of  Philosophy  and  Psychology, 
Adelphi  College,  states  {Principles  of  Education,  p.  300)  • — 
"Training  in  method  is  most  economical  and  most  effective 
when  it  is  given  in  connection  with  content  the  mastery  of 
which  is  in  itself  valuable."  An  article  in  The  Pedagogical 
Seminary  for  1914,  by  C.  K.  Lyans  of  Clark  University,  points 
out  the  need  of  vitality  in  school  work,  and  then  adds  that  the 
work  should  also  be  difficult.  "One  who  has  in  his  school 
career  never  done  anything  disagreeable,"  says  Lyans,  "who 
has  never  had  to  study  until  he  has  gained  his  'second  breath,' 
has  missed  one  of  the  most  valuable  results  of  an  education. 


124  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

All  the  studies  of  the  learning  process,  as  well  as  universal 
experience,  prove  that  it  is  hard  and  intense  work  that  edu- 
cates." (pp.  387-388).  C.  H.  Judd,  Director  of  the  School  of 
Education,  University  of  Chicago,  who  certainly  can  not  be 
accused  of  being  a  partisan  of  the  classics,  declares  (Psy- 
chology of  High  School  Subjects,  pp.  424-425)  :  "The  older 
subjects  of  the  curriculum  have  so  long  served  the  purposes 
of  instruction  that  they  have  cultivated  a  form  of  treatment 
and  body  of  material  which  generation  after  generation  has 
come  to  appreciate  as  a  suitable  vehicle  for  the  general  train- 
ing of  the  mind.  These  older  subjects  have  a  distinct  advant- 
age over  the  newer  subjects  which  are  still  trying  out  the 
subject  matter  which  they  utilize  and  the  methods  of  presenting 
this  subject  matter."  Why  the  full  Latin  requirement  should  he 
kept,  p.   1-2. 


NEGATIVE  DISCUSSION 

THE  VALUE  OF  THE  CLASSICS  ' 

The  thorough-going  advocates  of  Classics  hold  Latin  and 
Greek  to  be  indispensable  to  a  liberal  education.  They  do  not 
allow  of  an  alternative  road  to  our  University  Degrees.  They 
will  not  admit  that  the  lapse  of  three  centuries,  with  their 
numerous  revolutions,  and  their  vast  developments  of  new 
knowledge,  make  any  difference  whatever  to  the  educational 
value  of  a  knowledge  of  the  Greek  and  Roman  classics.  They  get 
over  the  undeniable  fact,  that  we  no  longer  employ  these 
languages,  as  languages,  by  bringing  forward  a  number  of  uses 
that  never  occurred  to  Erasmus,  Casaubon  or  Milton. 

In  the  Middle  Ages,  the  use  of  Latin  was  universal.  After 
the  taking  of  Constantinople,  Greek  literature  burst  upon 
Western  Europe,  and  so  entranced  the  choicer  spirits  as  to 
bring  about  a  temporary  revival  of  Paganism.  To  the  Christian 
scholarly  enquirer,  Greek  was  welcomed  as  laying  open  the 
original  of  the  New  Testament,  together  with  the  Eastern 
Fathers  of  the  Church.  The  zeal  thus  springing  up  rendered 
possible  the  imposition  of  a  new  language  upon  educated  youth, 
which  might  have  well  seemed  too  much  for  human  indolence. 
Our  Universities  accepted  the  addition;  and  the  teachers  and 
pupils  had  to  speak  Latin,  and  read  Greek.^ 

The  men  of  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries  had  their 
own  follies,  errors,  and  superstitions;  but  their  mode  of  estimat- 
ing the  worth  of  the  classical  tongues  was  plain  common  sense. 
Says  Hegius,  the  Dutch  scholar  (master  of  Erasmus,  head  of 
the    College    of    Deventer,    1438-1468)  :    *If    anyone    wishes    to 

*  Alexander  Bain.     Education  as  a  science.    Chapters  10  and  11. 

*  Thus  in  the  Middle  Ages  Latin  was  made  the  groundwork  of  educa- 
tion; not  for  the  beauty  of  its  classical  literature,  nor  because  the  study  of 
a  dead  language  was  the  best  mental  gymnastic,  or  the  only  means  of 
acquiring  a  masterly  freedom  in  the  use  of  living  tongues,  but  because  it 
was  the  language  of  educated  men  throughout  Western  Europe,  employed 
for  public  business,  literature,  philosophy,  and  science,  above  all,  in  God's 
providence,  essential  to  the  unity,  and  therefore  enforced  by  the  authority, 
of  the  Western  Church. — (Mr.  C.  S.  Parker,  in  Farrar  s  Essays  on  a 
Liberal  Education^  p.   7.) 


126  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

understand  grammar,  rhetoric,  mathematics,  history,  or  Holy 
Scripture,  let  him  read  Greek.  We  owe  everything  to  the 
Greeks.'  Luther  advocated  the  nev^  learning,  in  his  own  vehe- 
ment way:  'True  though  it  be  that  the  Gospel  came  and  comes 
alone  by  the  Holy  Spirit,  yet  it  came  by  means  of  the  tongues, 
and  thereby  grew,  and  thereby  must  be  preserved.'  Melancthon 
regarded  the  languages  solely  as  means  to  ends,  and  his  scheme 
of  education  embraced  all  the  departments  of  knowledge  on 
their  own  account.  Hieronymus  Wolf,  of  Augsburg,  was 
emphatic  on  the  same  point:  'Happy  were  the  Latins,'  he  says, 
'who  needed  only  to  learn  Greek,  and  that  not  by  school- 
teaching,  but  by  intercourse  with  living  Greeks.  Happier  still 
were  the  Greeks,  who,  so  soon  as  they  could  read  and  write 
their  mother  tongue,  might  pass  at  once  to  the  liberal  arts  and 
the  pursuit  of  wisdom.  For  us,  who  must  spend  many  years 
in  learning  foreign  languages,  the  entrance  into  the  gates  of 
Philosophy  is  much  more  difficult.  For,  to  understand  Latin 
and  Greek  is  not  learning  itself,  but  the  entrance-hall  and  ante- 
chamber of  learning.'    (Parker.) 

That  the  value  of  a  knowledge  of  the  classics,  on  the  ground 
of  the  information  exclusively  contained  in  Greek  and  Latin 
authors,  should  decrease  steadily,  was  a  necessary  result  of  the 
independent  research  of  the  last  three  hundred  years.  The  rate 
of  decrease  has  been  accelerated  during  the  last  century  by  the 
abundance  of  good  translations  from  the  classics.  In  this  pro- 
gressive decrease  a  point  must  be  reached  when  the  cost  of  acquir- 
ing the  languages  would  be  set  against  the  residuum  of  valuable 
information  still  locked  up  in  them,  and  when  the  balance  would 
turn  against  their  acquisition.  In  the  meantime,  however,  other 
advantages  have  been  put  forward  that  are  considered  sufficient 
to  make  up  for  the  loss  of  value  brought  about  by  the  causes 
now  mentioned. 

I.     The  Information  Still  Locked  up  in  Greek  and  Latin  Authors 

This  is  the  professional  argument,  but  the  case  respecting 
it  is  so  very  obvious  that  we  can  hardly  be  too  brief  in  presenting 
the  matter. 

That  there  is  not  a  fact  or  principle  in  the  whole  compass 
of  physical  science,  or  in  the  arts  and  practice  of  life,  that  is 
not    fully   expressed    in    every   civilized   modern   language,    will 


LATIN   AND   GREEK  127 

be  universally  allowed.  There  will  not  be  quite  the  same 
consent  as  regards  moral  and  metaphysical  science;  it  being 
contended  that  in  Plato  and  in  Aristotle,  for  example,  there  are 
treasures  of  thought  that  never  can  be  separated  from  their 
original  setting  in  the  Greek  language.  Again,  the  ancient 
literatures  are  the  exclusive  depositories  of  the  historical  and 
social  facts  of  the  ancient  world;  but  all  this  is  eminently 
translatable,  and  has  been  abundantly  reproduced  in  the  modern 
tongues.  A  certain  exception,  however,  is  made  here  also, 
namely,  that  for  the  inner  or  subjective  life  of  the  Greeks  and 
Romans,  the  best  translations  must  still  be  at  fault. 

As  regards  Greek  philosophy,  it  may  be  safely  said  that  its 
doctrinal  positions  and  subtle  distinctions  are  at  this  moment 
better  understood  through  translators  and  commentators,  writing 
in  English,  French,  and  German,  than  they  could  have  been  to 
Bentley,  Porson,  or  Parr.  The  truth  is  that,  in  translating,  a 
knowledge  of  the  subject  is  at  least  co-essential  with  a  knowl- 
edge of  the  language.  When  the  Professor  of  Greek  Literature, 
in  Cosmo's  Platonic  Academy  at  Florence,  lectured  on  Plato, 
the  Latin  Aristotelians  asked  with  indignation  how  a  philosopher 
could  be  expounded  by  one  who  was  none  himself. 

That  the  inner  life  of  the  Greeks  and  Romans  cannot  be 
fully  comprehended  unless  we  know  their  own  language,  is  a 
position  that  gives  way  under  a  close  assault.  The  inner  life 
must  be  understood  from  the  outer  life,  and  that  can  be  repre- 
sented in  any  language.  Whatever  sets  well  before  us  the 
usages,  the  modes  of  acting  and  thinking,  the  institutions,  and 
the  historical  incidents  of  any  people,  will  enable  us  to  compre- 
hend their  inner  life,  as  well  as  can  be  done  in  surveying  them 
at  a  distance ;  and  all  this  is  quite  possible  through  the  medium 
of  translators  and  commentators. 

This  seems  enough  as  far  as  concerns  the  professions.  In 
medicine,  for  example,  it  will  not  be  contended  that  there  is 
anything  to  be  gained  by  classical  scholarship.  Hippocrates 
has  been  translated.  Whatever  Galen  knew  is  known  indepen- 
dently of  his  pages.  But  indeed,  only  a  purely  historical  value 
can  attach  to  any  medical  work  of  the  ancient  world. 

Again,  the  lawyer  can  obviously  dispense  with  Greek.  There 
may  be  a  certain  claim  made  for  Latin  in  his  case,  in  conse- 
quence of  our  position  with  reference  to  Roman  Jurisprudence. 


128  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

But  this  too  has  been  sufficiently  represented  in  Enghsh  works 
to  make  the  whole  subject  accessible  to  an  English  reader. 
The  Latin  terms  that  have  to  be  retained  as  untranslatable  by 
single  words  in  English  can  be  explained  as  they  occur,  without 
anyone  requiring  to  master  the  entire  Latin  language.  As  to  the 
power  of  reading  Latin  title-deeds,  if  one  man  in  a  business 
establishment  possesses  it,  that  is  enough.^ 

The  plea  for  classics  to  the  clergy  has  always  been  accounted 
self-evident  and  irresistible.  Even  here,  however,  there  are 
qualifying  circumstances.  It  is  the  business  of  a  clergyman  to 
understand  the  Bible,  which  involves  Hebrew  and  Hellenistic 
Greek.  Classical  Greek  and  classical  Greek  authors  are  not 
necessary;  while  the  utility  of  Latin  extends  only  to  the  Latin 
Fathers,  the  scholastic  theology,  and  the  learned  theologians  of 
the  Reformation,  including  Luther,  Melancthon,  Calvin,  and 
Turretin. 

Now  there  is  no  book  that  has  been  so  abundantly  commented 
on  as  the  Bible.  Every  light  that  scholarship  can  strike  out 
has  been  made  to  shine  through  the  vernacular  tongues ;  there 
is  scarcely  a  text  but  can  be  understood  by  an  English  reader 
as  the  ablest  scholars  understand  it;  and  the  study  of  the 
original  languages  must  be  prosecuted  to  a  pitch  of  first-rate 
scholarship  before  anything  can  be  gained  in  addition  to  what 
everyone  may  know  without  scholarship. 

Among  the  caprices  of  opinion  on  the  present  question  may 
be  ranked  the  very  slight  stress  that  is  put  upon  the  Hebrew 
language  in  the  education  of  the  clergy.  The  most  exacting 
churches  receive  a  candidate  for  orders  on  a  very  easy  Hebrew 
pass;  and  it  is  never  supposed  that  more  than  a  small  number 
of  preachers  in  any  church  habitually  consult  the  Hebrew  Bible. 
Yet  the  Old  Testament,  containing  as  it  does  a  large  mass  of 
sentiment  and  poetry,  and  referring  to  a  state  of  society  far 
removed  from  our  own,  is  one  of  the  books  most  difficult  to 
exhibit  in  translation.  Granted  that,  as  respects  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, there  may  be  an  unexhausted,  possibly  an  inexhaustible, 
suggestiveness  in  the  knowledge  of  the  original  tongue,  the 
fact  remains  that  inattention  to  Hebrew  is  all  but  universal; 
while,    as    respects    the    New    Testament,    a   knowledge    of    the 

*  Mr.  Sidgwick  says  a  lawyer  'ought  to  be  aaiuainted  with  Latin  gram- 
mar, and  a  certain  portion  of  the  Latin  vocabulary.'  The  necessity  for 
the  grammar  is   not    self-evident. 


LATIN  AND   GREEK  129 

original  can  scarcely  add  anything  to  the  ample  exegesis  provided 
by  theological  scholars.  Whitfield  knew  no  Hebrew  and  little 
Greek. 

The  Hellenistic  Greek  of  the  New  Testament  does  not 
involve  classical  Greek  authors.  It  might  be  taught  like  Hebrew 
in  the  divinity  schools,  and  entirely  disconnected  from  the 
literature  of  Pagan  Greece.  That  these  Pagan  authors  should 
be  nursing  fathers  and  nursing  mothers  to  the  Christian  Church, 
is  a  standing  wonder.  That  Christian  youth,  so  carefully  with- 
held from  the  language  of  sexual  impurity,  should  be  allowed 
such  a  liberal  crop  of  wild  oats  as  a  course  of  classical  reading 
supplies,  is  not  less  wonderful. 

The  natural  course  as  regards  the  clergy  would  be  to  encour- 
age a  small  number  of  scholars  to  prosecute  the  study  of  the 
original  languages  of  the  Bible  and  all  the  allied  learning,  and 
to  dispense  with  these  languages  as  regards  the  mass  of  working 
clergy,  who  may  turn  their  time  to  more  profitable  account. 

II.     The  Art   Treasures   of  Greek   and  Raman  Literature  are 
Inaccessible  Except  Through  the  Languages 

It  must  ever  remain  true  that  certain  artistic  effects  of 
literary  composition,  and  more  especially  poetry,  are  bound  up 
with  the  language  of  the  writer,  and  cannot  be  imparted  through 
another  language.  These  very  peculiar  effects,  however,  are 
not  the  greatest  in  themselves,  nor  the  most  valuable  for  Hterary 
culture.  The  translatable  peculiarities  far  transcend  in  value 
the  untranslatable;  if  it  were  not  so,  where  should  we  be  with 
our  Bible?  Melody  is  the  most  intractable  quality;  of  this  alone 
can  Httle  or  no  idea  be  imparted  by  translations.  Even  the 
delicate  associations  with  words  can  be  expounded  through  our 
own  language;  just  as  they  must  be  to  the  pupil  who  is  studying 
the  original.  As  regards  all  dead  languages,  much  of  this  subtle 
essence  must  have  vanished  beyond  recovery.  Learning  Greek 
does  not  put  one  in  the  same  position  to  Homer  and  Sophocles, 
that  learning  German  does  to  Goethe.  All  that  a  scholar  can 
know  he  may  find  means  of  imparting  to  one  that  is  not  a 
scholar. 

The  subtle  incommunicable  aroma  of  classical  poetry  is  one  of 
the  luxuries  of  scholarship.  The  mass  of  students  cannot  reach 
it;  and  it  may  be  bought  too  dear.     Moreover,  the  translatable 


130  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

virtue  of  the  great  poets  is  so  great,  that  we  may  have  many  a 
rich  feast,  through  translations  alone:  witness  the  enthusiasm 
for  Pope's  'Homer/  Horace  is  perhaps  the  most  untranslatable 
poet  of  antiquity;  but  the  difficulty  has  been  a  stimulus  to  mar- 
vels of  verbal  dexterity  in  approaching  the  original;  and  he  that 
is  conversant  with  the  translations  now  accessible  to  the  Eng- 
lish reader,  cannot  be  far  from  the  kingdom  of  heaven. 

HL     The  Classical  Languages  Train  the  Mind  as  Nothing 
Else  Does 

This  argument  was  not  advanced  in  the  days  when  the  dead 
languages  were  useful  in  their  character  as  languages;  either 
it  was  not  felt  in  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries,  or 
it  was  unnecessary.  That  it  is  so  much  relied  upon  now,  is 
tantamount  to  a  surrender  of  the  previous  arguments,  or  at 
least  suggests  doubts  as  to  their  sufficiency.  It  has  that  amount 
of  vagueness  about  it  that  would  make  a  convenient  shelter  to 
a  bad  case.    We  must  ask  specifically  what  the  training  consists  in. 

For  one  thing,  there  is  abundant  employment  given  to  the 
memory;  but  the  proper  word  for  this  is  not  'trained'  but 
'expended,'  A  certain  amount  of  the  plastic  force  of  the 
system  is  used  up,  and  is  therefore  not  available  for  other 
purposes.  This  is  the  cost  of  the  operation,  for  which  we  have 
to  show  an  equivalent  in  solid  advantages. 

The  faculties  supposed  to  .be  trained  are  the  higher  faculties 
named  Reason,  Judgment,  and  Constructive  or  Inventive  Power; 
and  the  exercises  reckoned  upon  to  give  the  training  are  conning 
grammar,  and  translating. 

The  influence  of  Grammar  can  soon  be  told.  To  learn 
Grammar  is,  besides  employing  memory,  to  understand  certain 
rules  and  to  apply  them  as  the  cases  arise,  bearing  in  mind  the 
exceptions  when  there  are  any.  Inflexion  is  the  easiest  part. 
Latin  nouns  in  a  of  the  first  declension  are  declined  according 
to  a  type;  one  example  is  given,  as  penna,  and  the  pupil  has  to 
adhere  to  the  type  with  femina  and  the  rest.  This  represents 
the  operation  that  is  requisite  whenever  we  can  rise  from 
particulars  to  general  knowledge.  'A  fine  day,'  'a  good  road,* 
*a  boiling  kettle,'  'a  loaf  of  bread,'  are  general  ideas  that  are 
connected  with  practical  injunctions,  and  whoever  has  to  comply 


LATIN   AND   GREEK  131 

with  these  injunctions  must  understand  the  ideas  and  apply 
them  as  the  occasion  serves.  Sometimes  the  notion  is  accessible 
to  the  weakest  capacity,  sometimes  it  is  the  reverse;  there  are 
all  degrees  of  difficulty  up  to  the  subtleties  of  professional  lore, 
and  the  abstruseness  of  science  or  philosophy.  The  chief  point 
is,  that  no  branch  can  have  a  monopoly  of  the  exercise  of 
seeing  the  general  in  the  particular;  we  cannot  evade  the  neces- 
sity of  the  task.  Whether  one  subject  is  better  than  another 
for  our  education  in  the  matter  depends  upon  whether  it  is 
possible  to  ease  the  labour  of  conceiving  the  more  difficult 
abstractions  by  something  foreign  to  them ;  whether  mathematics 
or  metaphysics  can  be  made  easier  by  toiling  in  some  foreign 
lines  of  thought,  as  Latin  Grammar,  English  Grammar,  or 
Botany.  It  remains  for  anyone  to  show  that  such  an  influence 
exists;  the  arguments  for  the  efficacy  of  grammatical  discipline 
do  not  reach  the  point,  they  assume  that  grammar  has  a  monopoly 
of  exercising  the  mind  upon  generalities,  a  point  that  has  yet 
to  be  proved. 

Grammar  as  exemplified  in  the  Latin  and  Greek  languages 
is  particularly  devoid  of  subtlety,  until  we  come  to  certain 
delicacies  of.  syntax,  as  in  the  construction  of  the  tenses  and 
moods  of  the  Verb.  The  Parts  of  Speech  are  assumed  without 
any  definition;  they  are  recognized  by  the  Inflexion  test,  and 
not  by  their  function  in  the  sentence;  being  in  that  respect  very 
different  from  what  is  found  in  English  Grammar.  This  has 
been  made  an  argument  for  taking  Latin  before  English — the 
easy  grammar  before  the  abstruse  one.  But  the  greater  should 
imply  the  less.  If,  at  the  proper  age,  a  pupil  has  mastered 
English  Grammar,  he  has,  in  point  of  reasoning  power,  gone  a 
step  beyond  Latin  or  Greek  grammar,  and  should  therefore  be 
relieved  from  further  labour  for  perfecting  his  reasoning 
faculties  in  the  grammatical  field. 

It  is  in  the  exercise  of  translating  from  Latin  or  Greek  into 
English,  and  vice  versa,  that  the  highest  mental  efforts  are 
made,  and  the  greatest  strain  put  upon  the  faculties.  Accord- 
ingly, it  is  to  this  exercise  that  the  supposed  training  more 
especially  applies.  Now  the  mere  conquering  of  difficulty  is 
not  special  to  any  line  of  study;  we  must  further  enquire  what 
are  the  special  difficulties  to  be  overcome.  The  exercise  of 
translating  is  a  constructive  effort:   given  a  passage,  a  certain 


132  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

amount  of  grammatical  and  verbal  knowledge,  and  the  use  of 
a  dictionary,  the  pupil  has  to  divine  the  meaning.  There  are 
three  stages  in  the  pupil's  progress.  In  the  first,  his  information 
and  resources  are  unequal  to  the  task,  in  which  case  the  labour 
can  do  him  very  little  good;  we  are  not  the  better  for  working 
at  a  point  where  we  cannot  make  any  progress.  The  second 
stage  is  where,  by  a  certain  measure  of  application,  the  pupil 
can  succeed;  in  which  case,  the  operation  is  exhilarating  and 
rewarding,  and  will  be  achieved.  The  highest  stage  is  when 
the  work  can  be  performed  with  ease,  and  without  any  effort 
at  all;  in  which  stage  there  is  no  difficulty  to  be  overcome, 
and,  therefore,  very  little  effect  accruing  from  the  exercise. 
We  are  to  assume,  what  is  not  always  the  case,  that  the  student 
can  be  uniformly  placed  in  the  second  situation,  and  are  to 
enquire  what  there  is  in  the  particular  work  to  train,  discipline, 
or  strengthen  any  of  the  higher  faculties. 

The  translation  exercise  is  a  tentative  process;  the  meanings 
of  the  separate  words  have  to  be  ascertained;  and  out  of 
several  meanings  of  any  one  word,  a  selection  has  to  be  made 
such  as  to  give  sense  along  with  the  selected  meanings  of  the 
others.  Various  combinations  have  to  be  tried;  baffled  at  one 
attempt,  the  student  must  make  a  second  and  a  third,  until  at 
last  he  alights  upon  something  that  pays  a  due  regard  to  every 
word  and  every  peculiarity  of  grammar.  A  considerable  amount 
of  patient  effort  is  demanded,  and  the  long-continued  exercise 
of  patient  effort  must  do  something  to  form  habits  of  application. 
There  is  not,  however,  anything  specific,  unique,  or  unparalleled 
in  the  operation.  All  study  whatsoever  needs  a  similar  exercise 
of  patient  application ;  and  many  kinds  of  study  take  precisely 
the  same  form,  namely,  assigning  to  words  alternative  meanings, 
until  some  one  meaning  is  hit  upon  that  resolves  a  difficulty. 
It  is  the  application  needed  to  solve  riddles  and  conundrums. 
To  make  out  the  meaning  of  a  scientific  proposition,  to  find 
the  rule  that  fits  a  given  case,  we  must  try  and  try  again;  we 
reject  one  supposition  after  another  as  not  consistent  with  some 
of  the  conditions  of  the  problem,  and  remain  in  patient  thought 
until  others  come  to  mind. 

It  is  in  the  interpretation  of  language  that  most  difficulty 
is  felt  in  keeping  the  pupil  always  in  the  medium  position  above 
described;  giving  him  work  to  do  that  shall  neither  exceed  his 


LATIN   AND   GREEK  133 

powers,  nor  be  too  easy  to  call  them  into  full  exercise.  With  a 
passage  that  the  dictionary  does  not  give  the  means  of  rendering, 
the  chance  is  that  the  attempt  will  not  be  seriously  made,  so 
that  the  mind  is  not  put  on  the  qui  vive  to  drink  in  with  avidity 
the  master's  explanation.  It  is,  moreover,  generally  admitted 
that  the  use  of  'cribs'  does  away  with  the  good  of  the  situation, 
as  regards  translating  into  English.  Hence  to  secure  any 
discipline  at  all,  the  operation  of  translating  from  English  into 
Latin  and  Greek  must  be  kept  up,  although  in  itself  the  least 
useful  of  any. 

The  remark  could  not  fail  to  be  made  that  the  operation  of 
translating  is  necessarily  the  same  for  ancient  and  for  modern 
languages ;  and,  therefore,  any  modem  language  yields  whatever 
discipline  belongs  to  the  situation.  It  cannot  avail  much,  in 
reply,  to  advert  to  the  peculiarities  of  the  Latin  and  Greek 
Grammars — the  more  highly  inflexional  character  of  the  lan- 
guages; for  each  language  has  its  specialties,  and  the  business 
of  the  pupil  simply  is  to  attend  to  them.  Every  language  must 
express  the  same  facts  of  time  and  manner,  and  it  cannot  be 
very  material,  as  far  as  regards  mental  discipline,  whether  it  is 
by  inflexion  or  by  auxiliaries.  The  fact  of  inflexion  is  sufficiently 
experienced  in  any  case ;  and  how  far  it  is  carried  is  an  inferior 
consideration. 

In  Science,  far  more  than  in  languages,  is  it  possible  to 
adjust  the  difficulties  at  each  stage  to  the  strength  of  the  pupils, 
although,  undoubtedly,  to  do  this  in  any  subject  needs  very 
good  teaching.  The  Grammar  of  language  being  most  nearly 
allied  to  science,  can  be  best  graduated  in  this  way;  while,  in 
the  miscellaneous  chances  of  translation,  difficulties  start  up 
without  any  reference  to  order  or  the  preparation  of  mind  of 
the  pupils,   and  the  thing  cannot  be  otherwise. 

The  argument  from  Training  is  applied  to  certain  special 
points,  some  of  which  will  be  considered  under  separate  heads : 
such  are  the  discipline  in  English  and  in  Philology  generally. 
Much  stress  is  laid  upon  the  remark  that  it  is  necessary  to 
know  more  languages  than  our  own  to  be  delivered  from  certain 
snares  of  language;  and  the  favourite  example  is  the  ambiguity 
of  the  verb  'to  be.'  It  so  happens,  however,  that  this  very 
ambiguity — predication  and  existence — was  pointed  out  by  Aris- 
totle (Grote's  Aristotle,  1.  181).* 

*  In  an  address  to  the  Social  Science  Association  in  1870,  Lord  Neaves 


134  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

In  the  interesting  Rectorial  Address  of  Professor  Helmholtz, 
delivered  this  year  to  the  University  of  Berlin,  the  merits  and 
demerits  of  the  different  academical  institutions  of  Europe  are 
freely  indicated.  With  reference  to.  the  English  Universities, 
Oxford  and  Cambridge,  the  professor  thinks  his  own  country- 
men should  endeavour  to  rival  them  in  two  things.  'In  the 
first  place,  they  develop  in  a  very  high  degree  among  their 
students,  at  the  same  time,  a  lively  sense  of  the  beauties  and  the 
youthful  freshness  of  antiquity,  and  a  taste  for  precision  and 
elegance  of  language;  this  is  seen  in  the  fashion  in  which  the 
students  manage  their  mother  tongue.'  This  must  refer  to  the 
prominence  still  given  to  the  classics  in  Oxford  and  Cambridge; 
yet,  in  Germany,  the  classics  are  far  more  studied  than  in  Eng- 
land, whether  we  consider  the  universal  compulsion  of  the  Gym- 
nasia, or  the  special  devotion  manifested  by  a  select  number 
at  the  Universities.  Whatever  good  mere  classical  study  can 
effect  must  have  reached  its  climax  in  Germany.  As  regards 
Oxford  and  Cambridge,  and  particularly  Oxford,  the  best  parts 
of  the  teaching  seen  to  be  those  that  depart  most  from  the 
classical  teaching,  as,  for  example,  the  very  great  stress  laid 
upon  writing  a  good  English  essay.  It  is  often  said,  that  even 
in  a  professedly  classical  examination,  a  candidate's  success 
is  more  due  to  his  English  Essay  than  to  his  acquaintance  with 
Greek  and   Roman  authors. 

After  refuting  a  number  of  the  alleged  utilities  of  classical 
learning,  Mr.  Sidgwick  still  reserves  certain  distinct  advantages 
as  belonging  to  the  study  of  language.  *In  the  first  place,  the 
materials  here  supplied  to  the  student  are  ready  to  hand  in 
inexhaustible  abundance  and  diversity.  Any  page  of  any  ancient 
author  forms  for  the  young  student  a  string  of  problems  suffi- 
ciently complex  and  diverse  to  exercise  his  memory  and  judg- 
ment in  a  great  variety  of  ways.  Again,  from  the  exclusion  of 
the  distractions  of  the  external  senses,  from  the  simplicity  and 
definiteness  of  the  classification  which  the  student  has  to  apply, 
from  the  distinctness  and  obviousness  of  the  points  that  he  is 
called   on   to   observe,    it   seems   probable  that   this   study   calls 

recommended  the  study  of  Latin,  Greek,  and  French,  as  the  best  means  of 
cultivating  precision  of  thinking.  Now,  whether  or  not  the  writers  in 
those  languages  are  distinguished  above  all  others  for  precision,  it  is  a 
singular  fact,  that  these  are  the  languages  of  the  three  peoples  most  remark- 
able for   confining  their    attention   to   their   own   language. 


LATIN   AND   GREEK  135 

forth  (especially  in  young  boys)  a  more  concentrated  exercise 
of  the  faculties  it  does  develop  than  any  other  could  easily  do. 
If  both  the  classical  languages  were  to  cease  to  be  taught  in 
early  education,  valuable  machinery  would,  I  think,  be  lost,  for 
which  it  would  be  somewhat  difficult  to  provide  a  perfect 
substitute.'     (Essays  on  a  Liberal  Education,  p.  133.) 

The  materials  here  spoken  of  must  mean  the  subject  matter 
of  the  ancient  authors,  and  not  simply  the  languages;  this, 
however,  does  not  help  the  case,  as  the  matter  can  be  far  better 
given  in  translations.  The  second  reason — the  exclusion  of  the 
senses,  and  the  simplicity  and  definiteness  of  the  classification  to 
be  applied — must  refer  to  the  language  part;  but  it  contains 
nothing  special  to  the  classical  languages.  Moreover,  as  regards 
putting  before  the  mind  of  a  student  distinct  issues,  and  still 
more  in  adapting  these  to  the  state  of  his  faculties  and  advance- 
ment, the  learning  of  a  language  seems  to  me  far  inferior  to 
most  other  exercises. 

IV.    A  Knowledge  of  the  Classics  is  the  Best  Preparation  for 
the  Mother  Tongue 

This  must  have  reference  either  (i)  to  the  Vocables  of  the 
Language,  or  (2)  to  the  Grammar  and  Structure  of  our  compo- 
sition. 

(i)  As  regards  the  vocables,  we  have  to  deal  with  the 
presence  of  Latin  and  Greek  words  in  English.  There  being 
several  thousands  of  our  words  obtained  directly  or  indirectly 
from  the  Latin,  it  may  be  supposed  that  we  should  go  direct 
to  the  foundation  head,  and  learn  the  meanings  in  the  parent 
language.  But  why  may  not  we  learn  them  exactly  as  they 
occur  in  the  mother  tongue?  What  economy  is  there  in  learning 
them  in  another  place?  The  answer  must  be,  with  a  qualification 
to  be, given  presently,  that  the  economy  is  all  in  favour  of  the 
first  course.  The  reasons  are  plain.  For  one  thing,  if  we  learn 
the  Latin  words  as  they  occur  in  English,  we  confine  ourselves 
to  those  that  have  been  actually  transferred  to  English ;  whereas 
in  learning  Latin  as  a  whole,  we  learn  a  great  many  words  that 
have  never  been  imported  into  our  own  language.  The  other  rea- 
son is  probably  still  stronger,  namely,  that  the  meanings  of  a  great 
number  of  the  words  have  greatly  changed  since  their  introduc- 
tion  into   English;   hence,    if   we   go   back   to   the   sources,   we 


136  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

have  a  double  task;  we  first  learn  the  meaning  in  the  original, 
and  next  the  change  of  meaning  that  followed  the  appropriation 
of  the  word  by  ourselves.  The  meaning  of  'servant'  is  easiest 
arrived  at,  by  observing  the  use  of  the  word  among  ourselves, 
and  by  neglecting  its  Latin  origin;  if  we  are  to  be  informed 
what  'servus*  meant  in  Latin,  we  must  learn  further  that  such 
is  nof  the  present  meaning;  so  that  the  directing  of  our  atten- 
tion to  the  original,  although  a  legitimate  and  interesting  effort, 
does  not  pertain  to  the  right  use  of  our  own  language. 

Besides  the  vast  body  of  Latin  words  entering  into  our 
language,  as  a  co-equal  factor  with  the  Teutonic  element,  there 
is  a  sprinkling  of  special  terms  both  Latin  and  Greek,  adopted 
for  technical  and  scientific  uses.  The  appropriation  of  many  of 
these  is  recent,  and  the  process  is  still  going  on.  Even  with 
these,  however,  it  is  unsafe  to  refer  to  the  original  tongues 
for  the  meaning;  we  must  still  see  what  they  mean. as  at  present 
applied.  A  knowledge  of  Greek  would  be  a  fair  clue  to  the 
meaning  of  'thermometer,'  and  'photometer,'  and  a  few  others; 
but  for  the  vast  mass  of  these  appropriations,  it  gives  no  clue 
whatever,  or  else  it  puts  us  on  the  wrong  scent.  'Barometer,' 
as  'weight-measure,'  would  be  most  suitably  applied  to  the 
common  beam  and  scales;  the  real  meaning  would  never  be 
guessed.  So,  'eudiometer'  cannot  suggest  its  meaning  to  a 
Greek  scholar;  'hippopotamus'  is  equally  enigmatic.  Of  the 
'ologies'  very  few  correspond  to  their  derivation.  We  have 
such  conflicting  names  as  'astrology,'  'astronomy';  'phrenology,' 
'psychology,'  'geology,'  'geography';  'logic,'  'lographer,'  'logom- 
achy*; 'theology,'  'theogony';  'aerostatics,'  'pneumatics.'  'Theol- 
ogy' being  the  science  of  'God,'  'philology'  should  be  the  science 
of  'friendship'  or  the  affections.  It  was  remarked  by  Mr.  Lowe 
that  the  word  'aneurism,'  to  a  Greek  scholar,  would  be  mis- 
leading; he  would  not  at  once  suppose  that  it  is  a  derivative  of 
the  Greek  verb  dpevpvvca^  *to  widen.'  So  with  the  word  'metho- 
dist,'  the  knowledge  of  Greek  is  not  a  help  but  a  snare. 

It  is  well  understood  to  be  a  reason  for  borrowing  foreign 
words,  that  they  do  not  suggest  any  meaning  but  the  one 
intended  to  be  coupled  with  them.  In  obtaining  words  for  new 
general  ideas,  our  native  terms  contain  misleading  associations; 
the  great  virtue  of  the  names — 'Chemistry,'  'Algebra,'  'rheuma- 
tism,' 'hydrated,'  'artery,'  'colloid' — is  that  we  do  not  know 
what   they   originally   meant;    any    designation    that   we    could 


LATIN   AND   GREEK  137 

invent  in  our  own  language  for  such  vast  sciences  as  Chemistry 
and  Algebra  would  contain  some  narrow  and  inadequate  con- 
ception which  would  be  a  perpetual  stumbling-block  to  the 
learner. 

The  only  quahfication  to  the  principle  of  learning  the  mean- 
ings of  words  from  present  use  solely,  is,  that  the  classical 
words  in  our  language  are  mostly  derivatives  from  a  small 
number  of  roots;  so  that  a  knowledge  of  the  meanings  of  say 
a  hundred  roots  assists  in  discovering  the  meanings  of  thousands 
of  derivatives.  Not  but  that  we  must  still  check  every  deriva- 
tive by  present  use;  yet  the  memory  is  considerably  assisted  by 
a  knowledge  of  the  primitive  meaning  as  partly  retained  in  the 
numerous  compounds.  We  must  observe  the  present  employ- 
ment of  the  words — 'agent,*  'actor,'  'enact,'  'action,'  'transaction'; 
nevertheless,  when  we  are  informed  of  the  original  sense  of 
the  root  'ago,'  we  are  enabled  thereby  to  obtain  a  speedier 
hold  of  the  meanings  of  the  derivations.  So  with  the  Greek 
roots, — 'logos,'  'nomos,'  'metron,'  'zoon,'  'theos,'  &c.  This 
advantage,  however,  is  attainable  without  entering  upon  a  course 
of  classical  study.  The  roots  actually  employed  in  the  language 
are  separated  and  presented  apart,  and  their  derivatives  set 
forth;  and  we  are  thus  taught  exactly  that  portion  of  the  Latin 
and  Greek  vocabulary  that  serves  the  end  in  view. 

(2)  The  argument  as  applied  to  the  Grammar  or  Syntax 
of  our  own  language  is  equally  at  fault.  The  natural  course 
in  learning  the  grammatical  order  of  English  sentences  is  to 
study  and  practice  English  composition.  To  be  habituated  to 
different  sentence  arrangements  must  be  rather  obstructive  than 
otherwise.  The  reference  to  any  other  language  can  only  be  a 
matter  of  curiosity.  If  it  ever  happened  that  our  language 
could  borrow  an  effective  arrangement  of  syntax  from  any 
other  language,  the  borrowing  should  have  taken  place  once 
for  all,  so  that  all  succeeding  ages  might  adopt  it  as  a  naturalized 
usage. 

In  connection  with  this  argument  may  be  taken  the  frequent 
allegation  that  the  classics  are  an  introduction  to  general  Liter- 
ature, as  affording  the  best  models  of  taste  and  style ;  in  studying 
which  we  improve  our  compositions  in  our  own  language.  There 
is  here  a  host  of  loose  assumptions.  The  excellence  of  the 
ancient  writers  is  not  uniform,  and  some  assistance  must  be 
given  to  the  pupil  in  discriminating  the  merits  from  the  defects, 


138  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

a  lesson  that  would  be  best  begun  in  our  own  language.  More- 
over, the  remark  just  made  applies  again.  Whatever  effects 
can  be  transferred  by  us  to  our  own  compositions  cannot 
remain  to  be  transferred  now.  The  vast  series  of  classical 
scholars  that  have  written  in  the  modern  languages  ought  long 
before  this  time  to  have  embodied  whatever  beauties  can  be 
passed  on  from  the  ancient  literatures.  In  modern  European 
Hterature  there  is  a  large  school  of  imitators  of  the  ancient 
authors,  through  whom  we  can  derive  at  second  hand  all  the 
characteristic  effects  possible  to  be  reproduced  in  modern 
compositions. 

V.     The  Classical  Languages  are  an  Introduction  to  Philology 

-  This  argument  is  one  of  the  recently  discovered  make- 
weights on  the  side  of  classical  teaching.  The  science  of 
Philology  is  a  new  science;  and  before  launching  it  into  the 
present  controversy,  its  claims  as  a  branch  of  school  or  college 
education  should  be  established  on  independent  grounds.  Having 
its  ultimate  roots  in  the  human  mind,  like  a  great  many  other 
sciences,  it  is  a  recondite  branch  of  the  vast  subject  of  Sociology, 
or  Society,  viewed  both  as  structure  and  as  history.  Its 
immediate  sources  are  the  existing  languages  of  mankind,  which 
are  made  the  subject  of  comparative  study,  with  a  view  to  trace 
community  as  well  as  diversity  of  structure  (whence  springs 
Universal  Grammar),  and  also  historical  connection  and  deriva- 
tion. Such  a  subject  may  enter  into  the  curriculum  of  the 
higher  education,  but  not  at  a  very  early  stage;  it  must  allow 
priority  to  the  more  fundamental  sciences. 

Assuming  that  the  subject  is  to  be  received  among  school 
and  college  subjects,  the  bearing  of  the  Classical  languages  is 
somewhat  insignificant.  Latin  and  Greek,  as  usually  taught, 
are  both  defective  and  redundant  in  their  bearing  on  General 
Philology.  There  are  only  two  languages  out  of  a  multitude 
that  have  to  be  more  or  less  minutely  compared.  The  examples 
taken  from  other  languages,  Sanscrit  for  example,  are  of  as 
great  importance  as  those  from  Greek  and  Latin,  and  we 
cannot  be  expected  to  make  an  equal  study  of  all  these  lan- 
guages. In  point  of  fact,  we  must  be  taught  Philology  by 
examples  cited  from  many  languages,  which  we  do  not  pay  any 
further  attention  to;  and  the  Greek  and  Latin  examples  may  be 


LATIN   AND   GREEK  139 

obtained  in  the  same  partial  way.  The  full  knowledge  of  the 
Greek  and  Latin  authors  does  not  avail  us  for  this  subject.* 

These  are  the  leading  arguments  in  favour  of  the  present 
system  of  classical  study.  The  supposition  is  that  by  their 
cumulative  effect  they  justify  the  continuance  of  the  system 
after  the  original  occasion  of  its  introduction  has  ceased.  Or^ 
reviewing  the  tenor  of  these  arguments,  however,  we  find  that, 
after  all,  they  do  not  support  the  real  contention;  which  is,  that 
Latin  and  Greek,  and  they  alone,  as  an  undivided  coiiple,  shall 
continue  to  form  the  staple  of  our  higher  education.  Several 
of  the  arguments  apply  equally  to  modern  languages,  and  others 
would  be  met  by  the  retention  of  Latin,  by  itself. 

The  case  is  not  complete  until  we  view  the  arguments  on  the 
other  side. 

I.     The  Cost 

The  amount  of  time  consumed  in  classical  teaching  during 
the  best  ye^rs  of  youth  is  well  known  to  be  very  great,  although 
not  everywhere  the  same.  In  most  classical  schools  in  this 
country  more  than  half  the  time  of  the  pupils  is  occupied  with 
Latin  and  Greek  for  a  number  of  years ;  and  not  long  ago,  nearly 
the  whole  time  was  taken  up  in  many  of  our  seminaries.  In 
Germany,  at  the  Gymnasia,  six  hours  a  week  are  given  to  Latin, 
for  four  years,  and  seven  hours  a  week  for  other  two  years 
(age  from  twelve  to  eighteen)  :  seven  hours  a  week  are  given 
to  Greek,  for  two  years,  and  six  hours  a  week  for  other  two 
years  (age  from  fourteen  to  eighteen).  At  the  University,  it 
is  optional   to   pursue   Classics. 

The  question,  therefore,  arises — Are  the  benefits  commen- 
surate with  this  enormous  expenditure  of  time  and  strength? 
We  might  grant  that  a  small  portion  of  time — two  or  three 
hours  a  week,  for  one  or  two  years — might  possibly  be  repaid 
by  the  advantages;  but  we  are  utterly  unable  to  concede  the 
equivalence  of  the  results  to  the  actual  outlay. 

^  Mr.  Sidgwick  has  some  admirable  remarks  on  this  point  in  his  Essay 
already  referred  to  (p.  128).  Mr.  A.  H.  Sayce  expresses  himself  strongly 
as  to  the  small  linguistic  value  of  the  two  classical  tongues.  'For  purely 
philological  purposes  they  are  of  less  interest  than  many  a  savage  jargon, 
the  name  of  which  is  almost  unknown,  and  certainly  than  those  spoken 
languages  of  modern  Europe  whose  life  and  growth  can  be  watched  like 
that  of  the  living  organism,  and  whose  phrenology  can  be  studied  at  first 
hand.'  'The  greater  the  literary  perfection  of  a  language,  the  less  is  its 
importance   to  the   mere  glottologist.'      {Nature,   November   23,    1876.) 


140  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

In  the  more  recent  system  of  teaching,  under  which  some 
attention  is  given  to  the  history  and  the  institutions  of  Greece 
and  Rome,  a  certain  amount  of  valuable  knowledge  is  inter- 
mixed with  the  useless  parts  of  the  teaching;  and  for  this  a 
small  figure  must  be  entered  on  the  credit  side.  But  all  such 
knowledge  could  be  imparted  in  a  mere  fraction  of  the  time 
given  to  the  languages. 

The  classical  system  has  been  the  practical  exclusion  of  all 
other  studies  from  the  secondary  or  grammar  schools.  For  a 
long  time,  the  only  subject  tolerated  in  addition  was  a  very 
elementary  portion  of  Mathematics — Euclid  and  a  little  Algebra. 
The  pressure  of  opinion  has  compelled  the  introduction  of  new 
branches — as  English,  Modern  Languages,  and  Physical  Sciences ; 
but  either  these  are  little  more  than  a  formality,  or  the  pupils 
are  subjected  to  a  crushing  burden  of  distracting  studies.  To 
be  in  school  five  hours  a  day,  with  two  or  three  hours  for 
home  tasks,  is  too  great  a  strain  on  youths  between  ten  and 
sixteen.  Moreover,  in  the  evening  preparations,  it.  is  found 
that  the  classical  lessons  absorb  the  greater  part  of  the  attention.* 

The  argument  from  disproportionate  cost  is  sometimes  met 
by  alleging  the  defectiveness  of  the  usual  methods  of  teaching 
the  languages;  and  many  short  and  easy  methods  have  been 
propounded.  Experience  has  not  yet  shown  any  means  of 
seriously  reducing  labour;  and  the  thing  is  not  likely.  A  vast 
acquisition  is  unavoidably  involved  in  any  cultivated  language. 
The  Grammar  and  the  Vocabulary  cannot  be  committed  to 
memory  without  a  large  expenditure  of  strength;  and  the 
authors  to  be  read  have  each  their  special  peculiarities  to  be 
mastered.  The  observance  of  the  methods  of  good  teaching 
will  make  a  considerable  and  important  difference,  but  will  not 
dispense  with  the  demand  of  two  or  three  hours  a  day  for 
several  years  to  attain  a  moderate  proficiency  in  Latin  and 
Greek.  Moreover,  the  system  as  practised,  throws  away  the 
best  known  device  for  accelerating  lingual  study ;  namely,  allowing 
a  familiarity  with  the  subject  matter  of  the  several  authors  to 

1  We  are  rapidly  approaching  a  compromise  between  the  new  and  the 
old  systems,  on  the  basis  of  omitting  one  of  the  two  classical  tongues,  that 
is,  Greek;  the  Latin  alone  to  continue  as  an  imperative  branch  of  the  cur- 
riculum of  higher  education.  A  considerable  relief  will  no  doubt  be 
experienced  by  throwing  Greek  into  option;  but  the  radical  evil  of  our 
Grammar  School  system  will  remain.  The  two  best  hours  of  the  day  for 
several  years  will  still  be  given  to  a  barren  occupation;  and  the  thorough 
reconstruction  of  the  scheme  of  liberal  studies  will  be  indefinitely  post- 
poned. 


LATIN    AND    GREEK  141 

be  attained  in  advance.  The  pupils  in  the  Latin  and  Greek 
classes  have  not  as  yet  been  initiated  into  any  important  subject; 
and  what  renders  the  study  tolerable  is  the  large  devotion 
of  time  to  the  one  theme  of  universal  interest — personal 
narrative. 

IL     The  Mixture  of  Conflicting  Studies  Impedes  the  Course  of 
the  Learner 

On  the  supposition  that  the  classical  languages  are  taught, 
not  in  their  simple  character  as  languages,  but  with  a  view 
to  logical  training,  training  in  English,  literary  culture,  general 
philology, — the  carrying  out  of  so  many  applications  at  one 
time,  and  in  one  connection,  is  fatal  to  progress  in  any.  Although 
the  languages  may  never  actually  be  used,  the  linguistic  diffi- 
culties of  the  acquisition  must  be  encountered  all  the  same; 
and  the  attention  of  the  pupil  must  be  engrossed  in  the  first 
instance  with  overcoming  these  difficulties.  It  is,  therefore,  an 
obvious  mistake  in  teaching  method  to  awaken  the  mind  to 
other  topics  and  considerations,  while  the  first  point  has  not  been 
reached.  I  have  everywhere  maintained  as  a  first  principle  of 
the  economy  or  conduct  of  the  Understanding,  that  separate 
subjects  should  be  made  separate  lessons.  This  is  not  easy 
when  two  studies  are  embodied  in  the  some  composition,  as 
language  and  meaning ;  in  that  case  the  separation  can  be  effected 
only  by  keeping  one  of  the  two  in  the  background  throughout 
each  lesson. 

The  least  questionable  effect  of  classical  study  (although 
one  equally  arising  from  modern  languages)  is  the  exercise  of 
composing  in  our  own  language  through  translation.  Still,  it  is 
but  a  divided  attention  that  we  can  give  to  the  exercise.  We 
are  under  the  strain  of  divining  the  meaning  of  the  original, 
and  cannot  give  much  thought  to  the  best  mode  of  rendering 
it  in  our  own  language.  This  is  necessarily  a  varying  position. 
There  may  be  occasions  when  the  sense  of  the  original  is  got 
without  trouble,  and  when  we  are  free  to  apply  ourselves  to  the 
expression — in  English,  or  whatever  language  we  are  using. 
But  this  is  all  a  matter  of  chance;  and  such  desultory  fits  of 
consideration  are  not  the  way  to  make  progress  in  a  vast  study. 
Moreover,  the  master  is  a  man  chosen  because  he  is  a  proficient 
in  classics,  not  because  he  has  any  special  ,or  distinguishing 
acquaintance   with   the   modern   language.      Now    it   must   seem 


142  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

incontestable  that  the  only  way  to  overtake  an  extensive  and 
difficult  department  of  information  and  training,  is  to  proceed 
methodically,  and  with  exclusive  devotion  of  mind  at  stated 
times,  under  the  guidance  of  an  expert  in  the  department.  All 
experience  shows  that  only  very  inferior  EngUsh  composition  is 
the  result  of  translating  from  Latin  or  Greek  into  English. 
There  is  necessarily  a  good  deal  of  straining  to  make  the 
English  fit  the  original;  while  the  greater  number  of  the  most 
useful  forms  of  the  language  are  never  brought  into  requisition 
at  all. 

There  is  something  plausible  in  the  supposition  of  cultivating 
all  the  faculties  at  one  stroke,  as  if  an  exercise  could  be  invented 
that  could  teach  spelling,  cooking,  and  dancing,  simultaneously. 
Because  the  same  piece  of  composition  involves  grammar, 
rhetoric,  scientific  information  and  logical  method,  we  are  not 
to  infer  that  it  should  be  the  text  for  all  these  lessons  at  one 
time.  It  is  not  merely  that  the  way  to  carry  the  mind  forward 
in  the  several  departments  is,  to  keep  it  continuously  fixed  on 
each  for  a  certain  duration;  equally  pertinent  is  the  fact  that, 
although  every  passage  occurring  in  a  lesson  must  needs  embody 
language,  rhetoric,  and  information,  the  same  passage  does  not 
equally  suit  for  all  the  applications. 

It  may  be  true  that  classical  education  is  many-sided;  but 
what  if  it  is  defective  on  each  side?  The  very  fact  that  the 
same  instrument  is  made  to  serve  various  educational  purposes, 
which  seems  at  first  sight  a  very  plausible  argument  in  its 
favour,  is  really,  for  the  majority  of  boys,  a  serious  disadvantage/ 
(Sidgwick,  ut  supra,  p.  127.) 

The  study  of  fine  Literary  effects  cannot  be  carried  on  in 
connection  with  Latin  and  Greek,  not  only  because  of  the 
distraction  of  the  mind  with  other  things,  but  because  of  the 
random,  uncertain,  unconsecutive  way  that  the  examples  are 
brought  forward.  Even  if  there  were  no  order  whatever  in 
the  parts  of  a  subject,  still  the  irregular  presentation  of  these 
would  be  adverse  to  a  cumulative  impression.  The  same  would 
apply  to  General  Philology,  if  that  were  regarded  as  one  of  the 
uses  of  classical  study. 

The  conclusion  on  the  whole  is,  that  the  teaching  of  language 
is  most  rationally  conducted  when  it  stands  on  the  original 
footing  of  the  classical  languages  in  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth 
centuries,  i.e.  when  the  language  itself  as  a  means  of  inter- 
pretation and  communication,  is  the  fact,   and  the  whole  fact. 


LATIN   AND   GREEK  143 

The  attention  of  the  pupils  could  then  be  kept  to  the  one  point 
of  mastering  grammar  and  vocables :  the  authors  studied  would 
be  studied  with  this  sole  aim.  The  language  teacher  is  not  an 
interpreter  and  expounder  of  history,  poetry,  oratory  and  phi- 
losophy, but  an  instrument  for  enabling  the  pupils  to  extract 
these  from  their  original  sources  in  some  foreign  tongue. 

III.    The  Study  is  Devoid  of  Interest 

This  may  not  be  universally  admitted,  but  it  is  sufficiently 
attested  for  the  purposes  of  the  present  argument.  There  is, 
first,  the  dryness  inseparable  from  the  learning  of  a  language, 
especially  at  the  commencement.  There  is,  next,  the  circum- 
stance that  the  literary  interest  in  the  authors  is  not  felt,  for 
want  of  due  preparation.  It  is  a  fact  that,  but  for  the  never- 
failing  resource  of  sensation  narrative,  by  which  we  arouse  the 
dormant  intellect  of  the  child  in  the  second  standard,  the  reading 
of  classical  authors  would  be  intolerable  at  the  early  age  when 
they  are  entered  upon. 

It  is  the  nature  of  science  to  be  more  or  less  dry;  until  its 
commanding  power  is  felt  the  path  of  the  learner  is  thorny.  But 
literature  is  nothing,  if  not  interesting.  There  should  be  even 
in  a  course  of  Belles-Lettres,  a  certain  amount  of  science,  in 
the  shape  of  generalities  and  technicalities ;  but  these  are  soon 
passed,  and  the  mind  is  free  to  expatiate  in  the  rich  pastures  of 
the  literary  domain.  Literature,  instead  of  being  the  dismal 
part  of  the  school  exercises,  should  be  the  alternative  and  relief 
from  Mathematics  and  the  elements  of  Science  generally.  This 
cannot  be,  if  the  pupils  are  thrust  prematurely  upon  a  foreign 
literature  while  mastering  several  new  vocabularies.  It  is  now 
plain  to  the  best  educationists,  that  our  own  literature  must  be 
the  first  to  awaken  literary  interest,  and  prepare  the  way  for 
universal  literature. 

IV.     The  Study  Panders  too  Much  to  Authority  in  Matters 
of  Opinion 

The  classical  student  is  unduly  impressed  with  the  views 
promulgated  by  the  Greek  and  Roman  authors,  from  the  very 
length  of  time  that  he  is  occupied  with  them.  The  authority  of 
Aristotle,  once  paramount  in  the  world  of  thought,  has  long 
ceased  to  be  infallible,  but  the  reference  to  his  supposed  opinions 


144  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

is  still  out  of  proportion  to  any  value  that  can  now  belong  to 
them.  Any  views  of  his  as  to  the  best  form  of  government,  as 
to  happiness  and  duty,  are  interesting  as  information,  but  useless 
as  practice. 

A  curious  and  expressive  incident  occurred  at  a  recent  meet- 
ing of  the  British  Association.  Sir  WilUam  Thomson,  in  the 
course  of  a  paper  read  before  his  section,  desired  his  hearers, 
when  they  went  to  their  homes,  to  draw  their  pens  through  a 
certain  paper  of  his  in  their  copies  of  the  'Proceedings  of  the 
Royal  Society.'  It  would  be  well  if  the  example  were  imitated 
by  every  philosopher  that  has  happened  to  change  any  of  his 
opinions.  Even  if  we  accorded  to  Aristotle  a  commanding 
sagacity  in  Ethics  and  in  Politics,  we  should  like  to  have  his 
latest  decisions  as  to  the  value  of  what  we  now  possess  as 
his  writings. 

The  Renovated  Curriculum 

On  the  supposition  that  Languages  are  in  no  sense  the  main 
part  of  Education,  but  only  helps  or  adjuncts  under  definite 
circumstances,  the  inference  seems  to  be,  that  they  should  not, 
as  at  present,  occupy  a  central  or  leading  position,  but  stand 
apart  as  side  subjects  available  to  those  that  require  them. 

I  conceive  that  the  curriculum  of  Secondary  or  Higher 
Education  should,  from  first  to  last,  have  for  its  staple  the 
various  branches  of  knowledge  culture,  including  our  own 
language.  The  principal  part  of  each  day  should  be  devoted 
to  these  subjects;  while  there  should  be  a  certain  amount  of 
spare  time  to  devote  to  languages  and  other  branches  that  are 
not  required  of  all,  but  may  be  suitable  to  the  circumstances 
of  individuals. 

The  essentials  of  a  curriculum  of  the  Higher  Education  may 
be  summed  up  under  three  heads : — 

I.  Science,  including  the  Primary  Sciences,  as  already  set 
forth;  some  one  or  more  of  the  Natural  History  Sciences — 
Mineralogy,  Botany,  Zoology,  Geology;  to  which  may  be  added 
Geography.  To  what  extent  this  vast  course  should  enter  into 
general  education  has  already  been  sufficiently  discussed.  Our 
present  purpose  does  not  require  the  nice  adjustment  of  details. 

II.  A  course  of  the  Humanities,  under  which  I  include 
(i)  History,  and  the  various  branches  of  Social  Science  that 
can  be   conveniently   embraced  in   a  methodical   course.     Mere 


LATIN   AND   GREEK  145 

narrative  History  would  be  merged  in  the  Science  of  Govern- 
ment, and  of  Social  Institutions,  to  which  could  be  added  Polit- 
ical Economy,  and,  if  thought  fit,  an  outline  of  Jurisprudence 
or  Law.  This  would  put  in  the  proper  place,  and  in  the  most 
advantageous  order  of  study,  one  large  department  recently 
incorporated  with  the  teaching  of  the  classical  languages  by  way 
of  redeeming  their  infertility. 

(2)  Under  the  Humanities  might  next  be  included  a  view 
more  or  less  full,  of  Universal  Literature.  Pre-supposing  those 
explanations  of  the  Literary  Qualities  and  Arts  of  Style  that 
should  be  associated,  in  the  first  instance,  with  our  own  language, 
and  also  some  familiarity  with  our  own  Literature,  we  could 
proceed  to  survey  the  course  and  development  of  the  Literature 
of  the  World  through  its  principal  streams,  including  of  neces- 
sity the  Greek  and  Roman  Classics.  It  is  needless  to  add  that 
this  should  be  done  without  demanding  a  study  of  the  original 
languages.  How  far  a  Philosophy  of  Literature  should  penetrate 
the  survey  I  do  not  at  present  enquire.  Materials  already  exist 
in  abundance  for  such  a  course.  It  is  the  beau-ideal  of  Rhetoric 
and  Belles-Lettres  as  conceived  by  the  chief  modern  authorities 
in  the  department,  as  for  example,  Campbell  and  Blair  in  last 
century.  Only,  I  should  propose  that  the  elements  of  Rhetoric, 
in   connection   with   our  own   Literature,    should   lead   the   way. 

Such  a  course  would  carry  out,  with  effect  and  thoroughness, 
what  is  very  imperfectly  attempted  in  conjunction  with  the 
present  classical  teaching.  A  tolerably  complete  survey  of  the 
chief  authors  of  Greece  and  Rome,  with  studies  upon  select 
portions  of  the  most  important,  could  be  achieved  in  the  first 
instance;  and  it  might  be  possible  to  include  also  a  profitable 
acquaintance   with  the  great  modern   literatures. 

III.  English  Composition  and  Literature. — This  might 
either  pervade  the  entire  curriculum,  or  be  concentrated  in  the 
earlier  portions,  the  General  Literature  being  deferred.  What  it 
comprises,  according  to  my  view,  has  been  sufficiently  stated.  The 
survey  of  Universal  Literature,  would  operate  beneficially  upon 
the  comprehension  of   our  own. 

These  three  departments  appear  to  me  to  have  the  best 
claims  to  be  called  a  Liberal  Education.  The  deviation  from  the 
received  views  is  more  in  form  than  in  substance.  I  would 
not  call  Science  alone  a  Liberal  Education,  although  a  course 
that  implied  a  fair  knowledge  of  the  Primary  Sciences,  a  certain 


146  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

amount  of  Natural  Science,  and  a  wide  grasp  of  Sociology,  would 
be  no  mean  equipment  for  the  battle  of  life.  I  think,  however, 
that  the  materials  of  Sociology  might  be  accumulating  all  through 
the  curriculum,  and  might  serve  to  alleviate  the  severity  of 
the  strictly  scientific  course. 

I  think,  moreover,  that  a  Liberal  Education  would  not  be 
generally  considered  complete  without  Literature,  although 
people  must  needs  differ  as  to  the  amount.  I  hold  that  the 
three  departments  stated  are  sufficiently  comprehensive  for  all 
the  purposes  of  a  general  education,  and  that  no  other  should 
be  exacted  as  a  condition  of  the  University  Degree — the  received 
mode  of  stamping  an   educated  man. 

Such  a  course  should  be  so  conducted  as  to  leave  a  portion 
of  time  and  strength  for  additional  subjects.  An  average  of 
two  or  three  hours  a  day  might  be  occupied  with  the  contiimous 
teaching  in  the  three  departments.  Assuming  a  six  years' 
curriculum — covering  the  Secondary  School  and  the  University 
courses — it  is  easy  to  see  that  a  large  amount  of  thorough 
instruction  might  be  imparted  in  those  limits;  leaving  perhaps 
one  third  of  the  pupil's  available  time,  for  other  things. 

Of  the  extra,  or  additional  subjects,  Languages  would  have 
the  first  claim.  These,  however,  should  not  be  under  any 
authoritative  prescription ;  they  should  never  enter  into  any 
examinations  for  testing  general  acquirements.  Every  person 
going  through  such  a  course  as  we  have  supposed,  would  be 
urged  and  advised  to  take  up  at  least  one  foreign  language, 
giving  the  preference  to  a  modern  language:  the  intention  being 
to  learn  it  up  to  the  point  of  use  as  a  language.  How  many 
languages  any  given  person  should  study  must  depend  upon 
circumstances.  The  labour  of  a  new  language  is  not  to  be 
encountered  without  a  distinct  reason.  It  is  never  too  late  to 
learn  any  language  that  we  discover  ourselves  to  be  in  want  of. 
If  we  need  it  for  information  on  a  particular  subject,  we  can 
learn  it  up  to  that  point  and  no  farther. 

An  hour  every  day  may  be  available  at  any  part  of  the  course 
for  a  new  language,  whether  modern  or  ancient.  If  either  Latin 
or  Greek  is  taken  up,  it  would  be  learnt  strictly  by  the  grammar 
and  the  dictionary;  just  as  Dutch  and  Gaelic  would  be  learnt: 
we  should  not  diverge  into  literary  matters,  or  the  criticism 
of  beauties;   all  which  would  be  reduced  to  a  small  compass. 


LATIN   AND   GREEK  147 

after  a  survey  of  the  literature,   and   a   familiarity  with  good 
translations. 

There  would  be  no  need  to  begin  the  study  of  language 
early,  and  little  advantage:  and  it  would  be  undesirable  to  take 
two  languages  together.  There  are  other  matters  to  divide  the 
extra  hours  with  languages.  I  need  only  mention  Elocution  as 
appertaining  to  every  one.  For  more  special  tastes  would  be 
provided  Music  and  Drawing.  There  would  also  be  a  variety 
of  special  courses  on  branches  of  knowledge  not  embraced  in 
the  regular  curriculum.  In  a  well-provided  institution,  there 
might  be  classes  devoted  to  Anglo-Saxon,  General  Philology, 
select  portions  of  History,  and  so  on.  I  am  not  specially 
adverting  to  the  topics  preparatory  to  the  several  professions. 
The  reasons  for  the  change  now  proposed  have  been  given 
in  substartce  already.  They  are  contained  in  the  general  argu- 
ment as  to  the  position  of  languages  in  general,  and  of  classics 
in  particular.  Besides  the  consideration  that  languages  should 
be  learnt  only  when  meant  to  be  used  as  languages,  I  have  all 
along  put  great  stress  on  the  wastefulness  of  carrying  on  several 
incongruous  lessons  at  one  time.  From  the  first  statement  of 
the  Laws  of  Agreement  onwards,  I  have  contended  for  the 
necessity  of  like  going  with  like  in  the  same  exercise. 

I  have  also  urged  the  economy  of  learning  language  after 
laying  up  a  good  stock  of  ideas.  Setting  aside  the  pronunciation 
of  a  foreign  language,  the  acquisition  of  the  grammar  and  the 
vocabulary  is  easier  late  than  early;  any  decay  in  the  plastic 
force  of  memory  is  more  than  made  up  by  the  other  advantages. 
The  scheme  thus  set  forth  appears  the  only  means  of  arresting 
the  tendency  inevitable  at  the  present  day  to  excessive  special- 
izing of  the  studies  constituting  a  liberal  education.  It  is  the 
supposed  necessity  of  retaining  dead  languages  and  of  adopting 
foreign  living  languages  as  an  integral  part  of  education,  that 
leads  to  options  so  very  wide  as  to  leave  out  science  almost 
entirely  from  one  course,  and  literature  almost  entirely  from 
another.  A  mere  language  course,  containing  as  it  does  irregular 
smatterings  of  history  and  of  literature,  is  not  an  adequate 
cultivation  of  the  human  faculties;  it  is  defective  both  on  the 
side  of  training  and  the  side  of  knowledge  imparted.  On 
the  other  hand,  I  regard  it  as  equally  undesirable  to  limit  the 
course  of  study  to  science,  still  less  to  physical  science  (excluding 


148  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

Logic  and  Psychology),  least  of  all  to  Mathematics  and  Physics, 
The  more  obvious  objections  to  the  proposed  curriculum  may 
be  glanced  at. 

First.  It  will  be  called  by  the  dreaded  name — Revolution. 
Yet  the  revolutionary  element  is  not  very  great  after  all.  It 
consists  only  in  putting  languages  in  the  second  place,  reserving 
the  first  to  the  subject-matter.  The  scheme  pays  great  regard 
to  the  element  of  the  antique,  as  represented  by  Greece  and 
Rome,  and  would  render  the  acquaintance  with  the  history  and 
literatures  of  both  countries,  more  general  and  more  thorough 
than  at  present.  A  day  may  come  when  this  amount  of  attention 
will  be  thought  too  much. 

Second,  Classics  will  be  ruined.  To  this  there  are  several 
answers.  According  as  people  believe  the  classical  languages 
to  be  useful,  they  will  keep  them  up  to  that  extent  and  no 
more.  But  classics  will  never  cease,  so  long  as  the  existing 
endowments  continue,  A  small  number  of  persons  will  always 
be  encouraged  to  master  those  languages  thoroughly,  so  as  to 
maintain  the  study  of  the  history  and  literature  of  the  ancient 
world.  The  teachers  of  ancient  literature  would  be  expected 
to  know  the  originals;  and  they  alone  would  constitute  a  con- 
siderable body. 

.  Third.  Some  minds  are  incapable  of  science,  and  more 
especially  of  Mathematics,  the  foundation  of  the  whole.  In 
answer  to  this  we  may  freely  concede,  that  many  minds  find 
abstract  notions  exceedingly  distasteful  and,  as  a  consequence, 
difficult.  Men  of  admitted  ability  have  been  found  incapable 
of  mastering  Euclid,  while  at  home  in  languages,  and  in  litera- 
ture. In  this  case,  however,  the  disproportionate  pursuit  of  the 
one  department  has  been  the  real  obstacle.  The  experience  of 
existing  Universities  shows  that  four  men 'out  of  five  can  pass 
for  a  degree,  containing  elementary  Mathematics.  Perhaps  their 
comprehension  of  the  subject  is  not  great  or  exact;  but  if  their 
minds  were  more  disengaged,  they  could  understand  it  suffi- 
ciently to  go  on  with  a  course  of  the  experimental  and  other 
sciences,   in   which   the  interest  would  be  more   universal. 

Although  there  are  men  of  good  judgment  or  practical  sense, 
who  have  never  had  any  abstract  teaching,  and  might  seem 
incapable  of  it,  yet  the  highest  order  of  judgment  combines 
both    abstract    notions    with    concrete    experience;    and    in    a 


LATIN   AND   GREEK  149 

thoroughly  liberal  education,  abstract  science  ought  not  to  be  dis- 
pensed with. 

It  may  be  remarked  finally  that  any  man  possessing  a  thor- 
oughly grammatical  knowledge  of  several  languages  is  not 
wanting  in  aptitude  for  abstract  science;  grammar  does  not 
amount  to  a  scientific  discipline,  but  it  attests  the  capability  of 
undergoing  such  a  discipline/ 


LIBERAL  EDUCATION  WITHOUT  LATIN  ^ 

Let  us,  with  something  of  the  resolution  with  which  we  are 
now  meeting  the  stern  realities  of  war,  also  recognize  that  as  a 
people  we  are  deficient  in  the  standards  and  attainments  of 
liberal  education  as  these  are  required  to  live  up  to  the  position 
and  responsibilities  which  are  sure  to  be  ours  in  the  twentieth 
century,  as  a  result  of  this  war;  that  ours  is  a  conspicuously 
superficial  culture;  and  that  our  ideals  and  our  insight,  where 
the  genuine  humanities  of  our  day  are  involved,  are  in  many 
essential  respects  lacking  in  depth  and  sincerity,  and  especially 
in  the  qualities  of  reality.  As  certainly  as  we  watched  from  a 
distance  the  present  storm  mount  and  finally  sweep  us  into  its 
depths  while  we  trembled  in  apprehension  and  irresolution,  so 
certainly  shall  we  again  and  again  find  ourselves  in  the  near 
future  unready  to  meet  the  new  world  problems  that  are 
inevitably  to  confront  us.  We  are  seriously  unprepared  for 
our  coming  part  in  diplomacy,  interchange  of  knowledge,  and 
the  promotion  of  constructive  programs  making  for  international 
co-operation  and  friendliness. 

How  many  among  us  can  use  a  foreign  language  with 
precision  and  effect?  To  whom  shall  we  look  when  we  seek 
spokesmen  to  the  Japanese,  the  Russians,  the  Chinese  and  the 
Brazilians?  How  few  and  how  meagrely  read  are  the  books 
and  journals  that  speak  to  our  people  of  the  profounder  stirrings 

*  The  curriculum  now  roughly  sketched  would  harmonize  the  course  of 
primary  and  secondary  education,  and  do  away  with  the  troublesome  bifur- 
cation of  the  Ancient  and  the  Modern  sides,  which  at  present  complicates 
and  embarrasses  our  higher  schools  and  colleges.  The  work  of  the  primary 
school  is  necessarily  on  the  lines  here  laid  down,  and  could  be  made  still 
more  profitable  by  a  closer  adherence  to  the  same  plan.  There  would  be 
a   common   ground   for   all   the   professions   to   meet. 

2  Prof.   David  Snedden,   School   Review.     26:576-99.     October,    1918. 


ISO  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

of  government,  social  policy  and  economic  enterprise  in 
those  lands  whose  destinies  are  sure  yet  to  be  interwoven 
with  our  own !  How  little  in  any  genuine  sense  do  we  yet 
appreciate  the  extent  and  character  of  the  transformations  even 
now  steadily  and  rapidly  taking  place  in  the  very  soil  from 
which  spring  those  plants  that  we  call  art,  literature,  culture, 
religion,  and  democracy,  because  of  contemporary  diffusion 
and  deepening  of  scientific  spirit  and  method ! 

And  yet  in  some  respects  we  are  the  most  extensively  taught 
people  in  the  world.  In  the  public  and  private  high  schools  of 
the  United  States  are  found  today  many  hundreds  of  thousands 
of  our  most  gifted  and  most  ambitious  boys  and  girls  between 
fourteen  and  eighteen  years  of  age.  Our  numerous  colleges, 
founded  close  upon  the  heels  of  settlement  in  all  our  states, 
and  especially  colleges  making  no  pretensions  as  to  offerings 
of  special  vocational  training,  have  long  been  crowded  with 
young  men  and  women,  the  finest  products  of  our  blended  and 
prosperous  people.  America  has  not  stinted  in  providing  for 
aspiring  youth  the  means  of  culture  as  that  has  been  understood. 
In  no  other  country  has  so  large  a  proportion  of  young  men 
and  women  been  given  the  opportunities  and  incentives  for  all 
those  studies  which  supposedly  make  for  informing  the  mind 
and  enriching  the  spirit— in  other  words,  for  humanism. 
Certainly,  we  can  hardly  rebuke  ourselves  for  indifference,  for 
deficiency  of  high  intent,  or  for  niggardliness  of  support  in 
matters  of  what  we  beheved  to  be  liberal  education.  And 
it  is  just  as  certain,  notwithstanding  frequent  allegations  to  the 
contrary,  that  the  large  majority  of  the  hundreds  of  thousands 
of  youth  constantly  seeking  our  higher  schools  and  colleges,  are 
not  in  quest,  only,  or  even  chiefly,  of  the  education  which  they 
can  turn  to  immediate  practical  advantage — in  the  narrowly 
utilitarian  sense. 

Nevertheless,  in  spite  of  good  intentions  and  an  abundant 
provision  of  material  means,  our  agencies  of  liberal  education 
have,  I  believe,  conspicuously  failed  to  meet  the  needs  of  our 
nation  in  this  age.  They  have  left  us  in  a  state  of  intellectual 
and  spiritual  unpreparednes*.  Why?  Largely,  I  contend, 
because  those  to  whom  we  have  entrusted  the  direction  of  our 
institutions  of  higher  learning  have  had  no  adequate  under- 
standing of  the  meaning  and  character  of  liberal  education  as 
that  must  be  developed  for  the  needs  of  a  dynamic  civilization 


LATIN   AND   GREEK  151 

expanding  and  deepening  into  the  twentieth  century,  a  civilization 
carrying  along  growing  aspirations  for  democracy,  for  harmony 
among  peoples,  and  for  profounder  understanding  of  the  essen- 
tial things  of  the  present  and  the  future.  At  a  time  when  all 
the  vital  elements  of  political,  religious,  economic  and  cultural 
life  were  being  reshaped  by  forces  of  incomprehensible  magnitude 
and  complexity,  many  of  our  strongest  educational  leaders  have 
continued  to  prostrate  themselves  before  decaying  shrines  of 
the  past.  With  good  intentions,  but  bad  performance,  they 
have,  in  the  name  of  an  unsound  psychology  and  a  false 
pedagogy,  constituted  themselves  the  voluntary  defenders  of  a 
static  social  order.  With  eyes  aloof  and  minds  closed  to  the 
realities  of  present  and  future,  they  have  ever  tried  to  hold  the 
thoughts  and  aspirations  of  their  disciples  to  the  departed 
glories  of  a  Greece  or  a  Rome,  to  the  culture  of  a  thirteenth 
or  sixteenth  century,  on  the  assumption  that  these,  and  these 
chiefly,  exemplify  the  high  and  noble  things  of  spirit  and  mind 
which  should  be  the  foundation  of  all  fine  learning  suited  to  a 
modem  world 

For  generations,  and  almost  unto  yesterday,  they  caused  the 
dead  hands  of  Latin,  Greek  and  mathematics  to  hold  in  leash 
and  often  to  paralyze  the  aspirations  of  our  youth  to  share  in 
the  appreciation,  and  perhaps  to  aid  in  the  creation,  of  cultural 
products  significant  of  our  New  World  character  and  oppor- 
tunities. Millions  of  American  boys  and  girls,  the  best  of  our 
stock  and  of  our  democratic  social  life,  have  come  gladly  up 
to  our  schools,  naively  seeking  the  bread  that  would  nurture 
them  in  the  idealism  and  achievement  of  modern  America;  and 
to  them  has  been  given — what?  Shreds  and  scraps  of  two 
complex  ancient  languages  that  were  never  to  become  really 
intelligible  to  most  of  them,  and  could  not,  in  the  very  nature 
of  the  case,  become  more  than  slightly  intelligible,  except  to  a 
very  few,  and  which  were  destined  to  be,  in  ninety-nine  cases 
out  of  every  hundred,  almost  completely  forgotten  within  ten 
years  of  the  closing  of  school  life.  Accompanying  the  prescribed 
and  often  meaningless  studies  of  the  grammar  and  composition 
of  these  languages,  were  also  studies,  hardly  less  pitiful,  of 
classical  texts,  to  the  elucidation  of  which  the  less  scrupulous 
students  have  helped  themselves  by  the  ever-ready  interlinear. 
Hundreds  of  thousands  of  our  youth  have  toiled  reluctantly 
line  by  line  through  the  Anabasis  and  millions  have  painfully 


152  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

translated  Caesar's  Commentaries — splendid  bits  of  composition 
in  themselves,  but  about  as  significant  to  the  realities  of  a 
nineteenth  or  twentieth  century  as  bows  and  arrows  would 
be  in  modern  warfare,  or  Roman  galleys  in  the  naval  contests 
of  tomorrow.  Our  educational  conservatives  have  been  indus- 
triously trying  to  gather  figs  of  liberal  education  from  the 
thistles  of  the  classics.  They  have  turned  their  eyes  so  con- 
stantly backward  that  they  have  themselves  eventually  become 
incapable  of  seeing  clearly  the  realities  of  present  and  future. 
They  have  never  learned  that  the  twentieth  century  was  event- 
ually due  in  education  as  it  was  obviously  arriving  in  science, 
economic  achievement,  social  economy,  medicine,  engineering, 
and  agriculture. 

It  was  inevitable,  of  course,  that  as  America  found  itself 
politically,  economically,  and  socially,  it  should  try  to  free 
itself  of  the  obviously  useless  trammels  of  the  past.  Classical 
studies  in  schools  and  colleges  have  therefore  become  more  and 
more  vestigial.  Boys  and  girls  by  hundreds  of  thousands,  and 
usually  those  of  superior  ability  and  home  environment,  still 
elect  the  skeletonized  Latin  offered  in  public  high  schools, 
because  of  the  possibility  that  they  may  want  to  attend  those 
strong,  endowed  institutions  whose  social  connections,  wealth 
and  historic  strength  enable  them  long  to  resist  the  modernizing 
influences  to  which  institutions  more  closely  in  touch  with  the 
spirit  of  the  age  and  more  responsive  to  the  will  of  democracy 
have  in  part  yielded.  Almost  universally  in  our  private  schools, 
and  still  quite  generally  in  our  public  schools,  American  youth 
study  and  recite  in  perfunctory  spirit  the  meaningless  rituals 
of  Latin  Grammar  and  Roman  classic.  But  there  rarely  results 
any  genuine  interest  in  either  the  ancient  language  or  its  so- 
called  literature.  The  wholesome  common-sense  characteristic 
of  Americans  soon  asserts  itself.  Half  contemptuous,  half 
tolerant,  and  wholly  uninterested,  and  an  easy  victim  to  the 
dishonesty  of  the  "pony,"  the  boy  passes  his  antiquated  tests 
for  admission  to  the  college  whose  social  opportunities  mean 
so  much  to  him.  He  promptly  relegates  to  the  lumber-room 
of  his  mind  .the  broken  antiques  with  which  misguided  teachers 
have  tried  to  equip  him.  The  colleges  (a  steadily  diminishing 
number,  however),  having  exacted  the  ancient  ceremonial 
observance,  now  usually  permit  the  youth  to  proceed  in  freer 
.ways  toward  his  degree. 


LATIN  AND   GREEK  153 

But  if  the  study  of  Latin  has  degenerated  to  the  vestigial 
position  here  indicated,  why  the  strong  opposition  manifested 
against  it  on  the  part  of  those  who  call  themselves  liberals  in 
secondary  and  college  education?  The  exactions  of  time  and 
energy  imposed  by  the  stated  amounts  of  Latin  now  required 
by  even  our  more  conservative  institutions  do  not  seem  exces- 
sive. A  minimum  of  from  one  to  two  thousand  hours  of  study 
and  recitation  given  out  of  the  lifetime  of  an  individual  to  an 
enterprise  of  learning  with  such  honorable  antecedents  (in 
former  centuries)  as  the  study  of  Latin  surely  seems  no  great 
sacrifice.  The  college  admission  requirement  against  which  we 
inveigh  rarely  demands  more  than  one-fourth  «f  the  learner's 
time  through  a   four-year  secondary  school   course 

It  ought  to  be  obvious  that,  in  the  main,  the  motives  of 
those  who  seek  to  remove  Latin  from  the  list  of  the  specific 
prescriptions  required  for  any  high  school  course,  or  for 
candidacy  for  any  liberal  arts  degree  are  not  founded  on  mere 
prejudice  or  utilitarianism.  It  is,  of  course,  an  easily  made 
charge  that  the  so-called  opponents  of  Latin — who  are  in  reality 
only  opponents  of  the  monopolistic  position  accorded  at  present 
to  Latin — are  interested  only  in  bread-and-butter  education, 
that  they  are  lacking  in  devotion  to  the  ideals  of  culture,  that 
they  are  infected  with  the  anarchistic  spirit  of  the  age  which 
would  cut  loose  from  the  moorings  of  established  institutions 
and  inherited  traditions. 

It  is  not  part  of  my  present  purpose  to  reply  to  these  criti- 
cisms. However  well  founded  they  may  be  in  the  case  of  a  few 
opponents  of  Latin,  they  do  not  apply  to  the  many  students  of 
education  whose  attitudes  have  been  formed  only  as  a  result 
of  extensive  comparative  study  of  the  possible  and  desirable 
objectives  of  all  advanced  instruction  and  training. 

Those  of  us  who  disapprove  the  present  protected  position 
of  Latin  as  a  secondary  school  study,  a  position  made  possible 
only  by  the  requirements  imposed  by  powerful  institutions  of 
higher  learning,  do  so  for  the  very  fundamental  reasons,  that, 
in  the  first  place,  the  insistently  repeated  allegations  as  to  the 
educational  values  of  Latin  as  now  taught,  are  in  fact,  without 
demonstrated  validity,  and,  that,  in  the  second  place,  Latin, 
as  an  artificially  protected  study,  stands  as  one  pronounced 
barrier  to  the  development  of  truly  effective  liberal  education 
suited  to  the  genius  of  the  American  people  and  to  the  needs 


154  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

of  a  twentieth  century  democracy.  We  contend  that  to  give 
any  study  in  a  system  of  Hberal  education  a  sacrosanct  and 
artificially  protected  place  on  half  mystical  and  wholly  tradi- 
tional grounds,  is  to  corrupt  the  sources,  and  to  invalidate  the 
methods,  of  all  true  liberal  education  from  the  outset.  The 
values  pretended  to  be  found  in  the  study  of  Latin  impress  the 
scientific  person  who  thinks  in  terms  of  present  and  future 
results  as  being  like  the  meaningless  mummeries  and  symbols 
of  religious  rituals  that  have  long  outlived  the  period  of  their 
vitality.  ^  These  alleged  values  rest  actually  in  part  on  old 
customs  of  little  present  worth,  in  part  on  mere  stubborn  devo- 
tion to  the  ancient  for  its  own  sake,  and  in  part  on  the  rewards 
always  to  be  won  by  clever  exploiters  of  the  credulity  of  those 
whose  faiths  are  easily  enlisted  in  the  ultra-modern  or  ultra- 
antique. 

What  curious  defenses  are  still  conjured  up  in  defense  of  the 
classical  studies  and  especially  on  behalf  of  that  clinging  "dead 
hand"  study,  Latin !  All  educators  of  any  breadth  of  view 
appreciate  the  unequalled  importance  of  the  "humanities,"  those 
studies  designed  to  lead  the  minds  and  spirits  of  our  growing 
youth  to  apprehend  the  things  that  have  fine  and  big  messages 
of  human  possibilities  and  achievement.  In  a  broad  and  real 
sense  the  "humanities"  are  always  to  be  cherished  as  vital 
studies  in  any  plan  of  liberal  education.  But  are  we  to  delude 
ourselves  into  thinking  that  the  slow  and  perfunctory  dissection 
of  a  few  classical  works  of  literature,  produced  by  great  minds 
that  lived  in  regions  and  times  the  thoughts,  feelings,  and 
aspirations  of  which  are  almost  inconceivably  far  removed  from 
ours,  could  serve,  except  in  one  possible  instance  in  a  thousand, 
to  produce  the  kinds  of  insight  and  appreciation  that  are  prop- 
erly to  be  begotten  of  those  studies  which  we  may  sincerely 
call  the  humanities? 

Again,  we  are  solemnly  assured  that  through  the  study  of 
these  ancient  languages  and  the  few  easily  available  examples 
of  their  literatures,  there  is  produced  a  kind  of  magic  mental 
discipline,  a  unique  kind  of  sharpening  of  the  mental  faculties, 
not  to  be  found  in  studies  of  other  languages  or  literatures, 
nor  in  other  subjects  based  on  the  realities  of  our  own  day  and 
generation.  As  if  the  living  gymnastics  of  mind  were  not  best 
to  be  secured  through  those  activities  of  mental  and  spiritual 
apprehension    and   action   which    come    from    strong   efforts    to 


LATIN   AND   GREEK  155 

possess   and  to   control   the   realities   of   habit,   knowledge,   and 
ideal  that  have  worth  for  today  and  for  tomorrow ! 

We  are  told,  too,  in  words  of  well  simulated  profundity, 
that  contemporary  civilization  has  its  roots  in  the  old  civiliza- 
tions which  flourished  in  the  Italian  and  Grecian  peninsulas, 
and  that  it  is  through  study  of  the  surviving  desiccated  exam- 
ples of  those  cultures  that  our  youth  are  best  able  to  gain  access 
to  the  more  complex  cultures  of  our  own  times.  As  if  any 
sound  system  of  pedagogy  should  or  could  have  the  unformed 
mind  make  its  first  essays  in  fields  that  are  so  remote  in  time  • 
and  place  as  still  to  be  largely  unintelligible! 

We  are  also  assured  that  some  knowledge  of  Latin  is  essen- 
tial to  the  mastery  of  English  or  of  a  modern  foreign  language. 
But  here  again,  we  are  given  no  evidence  that  makes  allowance 
for  the  great  selective  forces  operating  in  schools  as  heretofore 
conducted.  Many  a  self-educated  Lincoln  or  Walt  Whitman 
has  given  us  fine  virile  English;  and  certainly  thousands  who 
have  made  good  records  in  Latin  and  Greek  have  later  given 
us  English  that  is  but  as  hollow  brass  and  tinkling  cymbal. 
We  know  too  little  yet  of  the  psychology  of  good  language 
training  to  speak  with  confidence  of  these  matters.  If,  as  a 
partial  results  of  the  numberless  hours  given  by  our  youth  to 
the  study  of  the  classics  since  colonial  days,  we  could  point  to 
prevalent  forceful  and  fine  vernacular  usage  as  one  accomplish- 
ment, and  to  some  real  mastery  of  modern  foreign  tongues  as 
another,  there  would  at  least  be  ground  for  shifting  the  burden 
of  proof  to  the  opponents  of  the  monopolies  long  accorded 
to  Latin  and  Greek  and  still  held  by  Latin.  But,  in  reality, 
we  exhibit  among  our  college-educated  classes  no  such  achieve- 
ments that  are  not  equally  to  be  attributed  to  the  superior  home 
environments  and  to  the  opportunities  and  exactions  of  the 
social  positions  of  these  more  favored  groups  Any  critical 
analysis,  even  in  the  light  of  our  present  uncertain  educational 
science,  of  the  valuable  objectives  and  useful  methods  of  lan- 
guage training,  either  in  the  vernacular  or  in  a  foreign  tongue, 
must  always  strengthen  the  convictions  of  common  sense  that 
direct  investment  of  available  time  and  energy  in  the  positive 
and  specific  pursuit  of  the  actual  ends  we  desire  is  the  best 
investment  we  can  make. 

Finally,  we  are  told  that  students  who  elect  Latin  in  our 
schools    reveal   themselves   later    as   having   better    minds    than 


156  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

those  who  do  not  take  Latin,  and  that  as  men  and  women  they 
succeed  better  along  almost  all  lines.  But  to  those  who  realize 
the  forces  of  selection  always  operative  among  parents  and 
even  among  children  themselves,  the  inferences  usually  drawn 
from  these  facts  represent  the  baldest  kind  of  reasoning  ''post 
hoc  ergo  propter  hoc"  There  is  much  evidence  indeed  that 
heretofore,  and  even  yet,  pupils  electing  courses  containing 
Latin  are  natively  superior  to  those  who  do  not  make  such 
elections.  Parents  aspiring  after  the  best  for  their  children  do 
not  set  themselves  up  as  experts  in  determining  values  of 
studies.  Naturally,  they  accept  the  judgments  of  the  higher 
institutions,  and,  in  matters  in  which  confessedly  they  have 
little  knowledge,  they  prefer  to  abide  by  respected  custom  and 
tradition.  But  there  exists  as  yet  no  available  evidence  to 
show  that,  even  in  mental  powers,  as  judged  by  ordinary 
standards,  the"  superior  students  found  in  Latin  owe  their 
superiority  to  their  Latin  studies. 

It  is  not  here  contended,  of  course,  that  other  secondary 
school  studies,  as  now  administered,  give  results  superior  to 
Latin.  Practically,  viewed  from  the  standpoint  of  the  needs 
of  our  age,  our  entire  program  of  secondary  education  has  been 
stricken  with  the  blight  of  blind  traditionalism  and  formalism. 
Mathematics,  the  one  other  subject  apart  from  English  that 
enjoys  a  monopolistic  position  like  that  held  by  Latin,  supplies 
to  most  of  the  girls  and  to  many  of  the  boys  obliged  to  study  it, 
probably  nothing  more  substantial  than  intellectual  husks. 
French  and  German,  as  now  taught,  are,  when  judged  by  the 
standards  of  interest  and  mastery  that  should  characterize  a 
truly  liberal  education,  largely  cultural  shams.  High  school 
sciences,  long  ago  placed  under  the  bondage  of  a  pedagogy 
derived  from  a  now  obsolete  theory  of  mental  faculties,  have 
become  bankrupt  as  means  of  giving  genuine  appreciation  and 
insight  to  the  mind  that  must  interpret  well  or  ill  the  scientific 
social  inheritance  of  the  19th  century.  Even  history  and  Eng- 
lish literature,  largely  because  of  faulty  aims  and  method  have 
so  far  failed  to  yield  to  our  millions  of  youth  the  riches  of 
humanistic  vision  and  sentiment  which  ought  certainly  to  be 
derived  from  these  studies  when  pursued  under  right  conditions. 

What  we  now  need  is  someone  to  speak  to  us  with  the  voice 
of  a  trumpet  the  message  which  seems  long  ago  to  have  been 
heard   by  young   Athenians— that   has   everywhere   been   heard 


LATIN   AND   GREEK  157 

by  generous  youth  destined  to  add  to  the  spiritual  possessions 
of  their  age — namely  that  as  a  strong  people,  our  best  oppor- 
tunities to  develop  new  strength,  to  do  creative  work,  are  here 
and  now.  We  must  learn  to  build  for  today  and  the  future, 
and  to  turn  to  the  past  only  when,  in  any  given  case,  we  shall 
have  planted  our  feet  firmly  on  the  rock  of  the  living  present 
and  the  nascent  tomorrow.  Let  us  as  a  nation  take  due  pride 
in  the  achievements  of  our  forefathers  and  ourselves,  and  at  the 
same  time  earnestly  resolve  yet  farther  to  enrich  humanity  by 
our  efforts. 

America's  contributions  already  made  to  the  social  inheri- 
tance of  the  f  modern  world  are  neither  meagre  nor  unimportant. 
Our  democratic  ideals  of  government  and  social  life,  our  scien- 
tific mastery  of  economic  forces,  our  steadily  forming  concep- 
tions of  community  well-being — these  constitute  social  assets 
fundamental  to  all  other  forms  of  social  evolution  and  in  all 
of  these  we  have  played  our  part  as  explorers,  inventors  and 
master  builders. 

It  is  now  our  opportunity  and  our  obligation  so  to  organize 
existing  educational  and  other  agencies  of  culture  that  here  too 
the  American  people  may  be  strong  and  creative.  The  feet 
of  many  of  our  gifted  young  men  and  women,  given  right  incen- 
tive, can  be  turned  into  the  paths  of  humanistic  leadership  just 
as  certainly  as  were  those  of  creative  men  and  women  in  the 
virile  and   forward  looking  epochs  of  the  past 

But  to  achieve  these  results  we  must  develop  in  the  fields 
of  liberal  education  the  conditions  which  have  made  the 
American  people  originators  in  the  spheres  of  politics,  mechan- 
ical invention,  and  business  organization.  We  must  cease  to 
make  ourselves  dependent  on  the  past,  except  as  we  perceive  its 
possible  service  to  present  and  future.  We  must  encourage  our 
youth  during  their  plastic  years  to  look  about  them  and  for- 
ward in  the  world  of  vital  realities  for  objectives,  and  to  look 
within  themselves  for  incentives  to  action.  They  must  learn 
to  adapt  with  caution,  and  not  at  all  flatly  to  imitate  the  work 
of  those  who  lived  under  conditions  very  unlike  those  which 
prevail  today.  They  must  learn  that  we  live  in  an  age  as 
unlike  those  of  Athens  or  Rome  or  15th  century  Florence,  as 
are  the  topography  and  climate  of  the  Mediterranean  shores 
unlike  the  great  geographic  reaches  and  tremendous  meteoro- 
logical alternations  of  our  own  continent. 


158  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

The  great  war  more  than  ever  impresses  upon  us  as  a  people 
that  if  we  are  to  fulfill  our  destiny,  we  must  cultivate  origi- 
nality. We  must  in  every  possible  way  seek  out  the  inventive 
spirit  among  us  and  give  to  that  endless  varieties  of  encourage- 
ment and  positive  incentive.  We  must  cease  to  be  worshippers 
of  temporis  acti.  Our  Golden  Age  lies  in  the  future  and  in  pros- 
pecting our  way  towards  it,  we  can,  when  we  are  sufficiently 
mature,  and  in  exceptional  instances,  borrow  even  from  the 
records  of  the  journeyings  of  Xenophon  or  the  quests  of  Ulysses. 
But  we  must  borrow  with  restraint  and  discretion;  otherwise, 
our  aspiring  youth  will  become  bemired  in  the  accretions  of 
ancient  history. 

The  intellectual  and  spiritual  assets  wherewith  the  American 
people  have  entered  the  twentieth  century  have  certainly  never 
been  equalled.  Our  economic  control  of  nature  has  made  us 
by  far  the  wealthiest  of  nations  in  point  of  material  resources, 
and  these  constitute  the  essential  foundations,  if  we  use  them 
rightly,  for  the  leisure,  the  appreciation  and  .the  education 
through  which  less  tangible  values  are  to  be  realized.  Our  one 
hundred  million  people  constitute  a  population  homogeneous 
and  co-operative  to  an  extent  never  yet  equalled  elsewhere. 

But  the  faith  of  our  people  in  education  and  their  disposition 
to  support  it  is  the  greatest  of  these  assets.  In  1915  over 
1,500,000  of  the  adolescent  youth  of  this  American  people  were 
studying  in  our  public  and  private  secondary  schools.  Over 
250,000  young  men  and  women  were  in  our  colleges.  These 
hundreds  of  thousands  represented  the  best  of  aspiring  America. 
They  are,  to  the  extent  that  their  schools  and  their  surroundings 
are  capable  of  inspiring  them,  eager  to  serve  their  country  and 
time.  They  have  acquired  a  kind  of  frankness  and  vital  interest 
in  realities  that  we  think  of  as  American.  They  are  not  easily 
subjugated  to  the  traditional  just  because  it  is  traditional,  but 
neither  are  they  at  heart  irreverent  towards  ancient  or  great 
things  when  the  ancient  is  really  significant  and  things  alleged 
to  be  great  (for  present  or  future)  are  such  in  reality.  They 
do  not  reverence  authority  as  such,  for  they  see  in  submission 
to  authority  a  means  and  not  an  end  to  the  truly  democratic 
life. 

Utterly  without  foundation  is  the  carelessly  made  charge 
that  these  young  Americans  are  preoccupied  with  sordid  ambi- 
tions  for  money  or  position.     True,   each  boy  or  young  man, 


LATIN    AND   GREEK  159 

and,  equally,  be  it  said  to  their  credit,  each  girl  and  young 
woman,  now  looks  forward  to  the  day  when  he  shall  be  able 
to  render  through  some  suitable  vocation  valuable  service  to  the 
society  which  has  nourished  him.  As  a  means  to  fullest 
serviceableness  in  this  vocation,  he  desires  and  actively  embraces 
at  the  right  time,  genuine  vocational  education;  and  in  some 
collective  capacity  America  is  now  disposed  to  expand  oppor- 
tunities for  vocational  education  as  supplemental  to  the  general 
or  liberal  education  which  our  regular  schools  have  heretofore 
offered.  Much  as  we  aspire  to  a  due  measure  of  leisure  for  all, 
we  do  not  approve  the  ideal  of  a  leisure  class  as  such.  We  are 
too  familiar  with  the  close  connections  heretofore  obtaining 
between  leisure  classes  and  a  prevalent  sensual  aestheticism  and 
moral  degeneracy. 

These  clean-limbed,  open-minded  youth  of  ours — are  we  to 
believe  that  they  have  only  inferior  capacities  for  higher  ideal- 
ism, for  the  development  of  that  new  humanism  for  which  the 
twentieth  century  calls?  It  is  the  proper  function  of  education 
to  help  face  these  adolescents  towards  the  future.  This  is  no 
static  civilization  of  ours.  We  are  not  seeking  to  remain 
eternally  on  the  same  level.  We  have  learned  the  inevitableness 
of  change,  of  evolution,  and  we  have  begun  to  feel,  if  not 
yet  clearly  to  perceive,  the  possibilities  of  controlled  evolution. 

What  is  the  problem  before  the  educational  institutions  of 
America?  It  is,  let  us  repeat,  to  provide  on  behalf  of  our 
youth,  the  genuine  means  of  a  liberal  education  that  shall  be 
adapted  to  our  age,  our  people,  our  circumstances.  What  would 
the  best  of  the  Athenians  of  the  age  of  Pericles  do  were  they 
in  our  place  today?  Would  they  try  to  find  in  forgotten  tongues 
and  antiquated  fragments  of  literature  the  culture,  the  idealism, 
the  mental  disciplines  that  will  transform  plastic  youths  into 
citizens  strong  to  uphold  the  state,  to  advance  up  the  slopes  of 
intellectual  inquiry  and  of  appreciation  of  the  possibilities  of 
conscious  co-operative  direction  of  social  forces  towards  the 
higher  goals  that  the  purposeful  discovery  of  the  future  will 
reveal  to  us? 

Let  us  first  try  to  interpret  what  is  undoubtedly  in  America 
today  a  very  well-developed,  even  if  only  partially  articulate, 
spirit  of  humanism — using  that  term  in  a  legitimately  modern- 
ized sense.  It  is  not  possible  for  us  to  locate  the  gods  behind 
the  summit  of  Mt.  Olympus.     To  us  they  are  abroad  in  our 


i6o  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

own  land  and  among  our  own  people,  and  the  effects  of  their 
wills  are  everywhere  manifest  in  our  own  day.  In  many  of  the 
most  important  matters  of  life  our  attitude  and  outlook  are 
almost  inconceivably  different  from  those  of  the  Greeks  and 
Romans.  Slavery  and  all  other  forcible  subjugations  of  the 
body  and  'spirit  of  man,  not  required  for  the  general  social 
well-being,  have  become  things  abhorrent.  Moral  degradation, 
poverty,  and  all  the  other  sources  and  concomitants  of  low 
efficiency,  of  undemocratic  competition,  and  of  persisting  unhap- 
piness,  are  steadily  being  repudiated  by  the  social  conscience 
of  our  time.  More  keenly  than  ever  do  we  perceive  the  need- 
less horrors  entailed  by  aggressive  war,  the  disease-like  char- 
acter of  crime  and  immorality,  and  the  social  wastage  resulting 
from  lack  of  knowledge  and  skill.  A  constantly  increasing 
proportion  of  our  people  are  steadily  striving  towards  the  day 
when  within  our  borders  may  be  found  a  vast  and  a  thriving 
population,  keenly  appreciative  of  all  the  sources  of  light  and 
fine  sentiment  that  help  to  make  life  richer  and  purer.  To  the 
attainment  of  these  conditions  we  more  than  ever  perceive 
the  need  of  originality,  of  science,  of  the  development  of  the 
best  humanistic  ideals  and  means. 

We  begin  to  understand  our  responsibilities  for  developing 
types  of  citizenship  that  Greece  or  Rome  could  not  possibly 
conceive.  It  is  our  conviction  that  in  a  democracy,  it  belongs 
to  all  to  assure  to  each  the  right  to  be  socially  efficient  in  all 
ways — culturally  and  morally,  no  less  than  physically  and  voca- 
tionally; and  to  enforce  the  performance  by  each  of  the  duties 
which  inevitably  attend  and  complement  rights.  America  sets 
the  world  high  example  in  its  persistent  demands  for  increas- 
ingly wholesome  family  Ufe,  a  better  position  for  women,  a 
fair  start  in  life  for  all  children.  We  are  striving  towards  the 
time  when  in  a  purposeful  way  we  may  use  all  forms  of  fine 
art  to  the  fullest  extent  that  is  possible  in  our  day  and  genera- 
tion as  instruments  of  control,  development,  enrichment  of  life. 
We  certainly  see  much  farther  into  the  things  of  society  than 
did  or  could  our  Greek  or  Judean  or  Roman  or  Teutonic  fore- 
bears. We  have  now  the  means  of  developing,  as  they  could 
not,  things  of  the  mind  and  things  of  the  spirit. 

The  new  aims  and  methods  will  have  to  be  developed  in 
large  part  experimentally  by  educators  who  are  well  grounded 
in  psychology  and  sociology.    It  is  improbable  that  these  experi- 


LATIN   AND   GREEK  i6i 

menters  will  fail  to  make  full  use  of  the  valuable  materials  to 
be  found  in  existing  customs.  Like  the  Pasteurs,  Edisons,  and 
Lincolns  who,  in  other  fields  have  wrought  to  new  achieve- 
ments, they  will  gladly  take  from  past  practice  or  surviving 
custom  the  light  that  will  help  them  on  their  way.  All  they 
ask  is  that  their  efforts  be  not  blocked  by  vested  interests 
and  protected  faiths.  There  is  no  credit  to  a  civilized  society 
in  allowing  prejudice  and  blind  conservatism  to  visit  death  on 
a  Socrates,  ignomy  on  a  Columbus,  and  disheartening  obstruc- 
tion on  a  Pasteur.  The  experimental  schools  of  tomorrow — 
and  we  must  and  shall  have  scores  of  them — ought  to  be  given 
the  freest  possible  scope  to  develop  and  test  new  and  varied 
objectives   and   the   means   of   realizing   them. 

In  a  few  essential  respects,  it  is  certainly  even  now  prac- 
ticable for  the  student  of  modern  education  to  predict  some 
probable    developments   in   the   new   liberal   education. 

For  the  adolescent  youth  the  processes  of  that  education 
will  involve  reasonable  amounts  of  the  sharpest  and  sternest 
discipline — discipline  of  powers  of  body,  of  mind,  and  of  moral 
character.  But  the  youth  himself  will  certainly  be  an  appre- 
ciative and  informed  party  as  regards  the  ends  of  these  disci- 
pHnes.  He  will  not  usually  need  to  be  driven  in  fear,  or  be 
invited  to  proceed  in  blind  faith,  because  the  valid  worth  of 
that  which  he  must  do  will  be  a  matter  of  generally  understood 
demonstration.  Like  the  Athenian  youth  whom  we  delight  to 
recall,  he  will  be  trained,  and  trained  hard  if  necessary,  in 
those  powers  that  have  a  visibly  functional  place  in  society 
as  it  is  today  or  will  be  tomorrow.  No  longer  will  he  be 
obliged,  in  the  name  of  an  obsolete  pedagogy,  to  subject  him- 
self to  disciplines  which,  like  the  nostrums  of  mediaeval 
medicine,  could  rarely  be  taken  by  intelligent  persons  except 
in  a  spirit  of  uncertainty  and  misgiving. 

We  are  indeed  learning  to  be  ashamed  of  that  devotion  to 
educational  "simples"  which  in  our  secondary  education  deluded 
us  into  thinking  that  a  year  or  two  of  work  with  algebra  and 
geometry  by  adolescents  who  would  later  make  no  vocational 
use  of  the  knowledge  acquired,  or  four  years  of  indifferent  • 
study  of  a  classical  language,  with  its  resulting  meagre  grasp 
of  literary  selection,  read  often  with  the  furtive  aid  of  ponies, 
can  give  for  our  day  and  generation  the  foundations  of  the 
powers   which   we   idealize   as   intellectual   discipline.     We   are 


i62  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

learning  the  futilities  of  that  misleading  and  mechanical  peda- 
gogy based  upon  a  metaphysical  and  unscientific  psychology 
which  thinks  to  find  in  Latin  and  algebra  intellectual  philoso- 
pher's stones — to  find  in  the  mummified  studies,  quite  divorced 
from  all  the  realities  of  mind,  spirit  and  body  as  they  belong 
to  our  day  and  generation,  precious  means  of  nurture  for  mind 
and  spirit. 

But  the  new  liberal  education  will  achieve  only  part  of  its 
results  through  the  rigorous  processes  of  hard  discipline.  It 
will  provide  also  for  many  forms  of  growth  through  appeals  to 
native  interest,  ambition,  and  instinctive  good  will.  It  will 
discover  a  pedagogy  suited  to  the  easy  evoking  and  establishing 
of  appreciations  and  ideals  of  approved  worth.  It  is  a  wide- 
spread error  of  educators  of  the  older  type  that  schools  rated 
good  by  current  standards  develop  appreciation,  tastes  and 
ideals  generally  through  the  exercises  of  the  classroom.  This 
happens  occasionally  for  the  rare  pupil  under  an  average  teacher 
and  for  many  pupils  under  the  exceptional  teacher — that  one 
teacher  out  of  a  thousand  whose  native  genius  can  make  even 
mathematics  or  Latin  fascinating.  But  these  finer  qualities 
are  much  more  often  the  by-products  of  the  school  life,  the 
residual  effects  of  play,  social  intercourse,  and  miscellaneous 
reading.  The  secondary  school  of  the  future  v/ill  have  a  splen- 
did opportunity  to  extend  and  render  more  effective  these  forms 
of  education  of  which  the  disciplinarian  and  taskmaster  knows 
little  and  often  cares  less.  A  new  type  of  schoolmaster  must 
arise  who  can  comprehend  the  significance  in  true  cultural 
education  of  self-inspired  work,  leisurely  development  of  tastes 
and  abiding  interests,  and  the  richness  of  inspired  social  inter- 
course. 

Much  light  is  now  being  shed  on  the  problems  of  developing 
a  functioning  liberal  education  through  the  progress  recently 
made  in  defining  the  ends  and  means  of  effective  vocational 
education.  Heretofore,  all  education  except  the  vocational 
education  designed  to  prepare  for  a  few  professions,  has  been 
vaguely  assumed  to  "fit  for  life" — in  the  vocational  no  less 
than  in  the  cultural  and  civic  sense.  Faculties  of  liberal  arts 
colleges  have  solemnly  defended  the  thesis  "a  college  education 
pays"  when  business  men,  moved  only  by  considerations  of 
vocational  efficiency,  have  challenged  them.  That  a  college 
education  might  well  "pay"  on  grounds  wholly  other  than  voca- 


LATIN   AND   GREEK  163 

tional — and  pay  both  the  individual  in  culture  and  the  other 
abiding  satisfactions  of  life,  as  well  as  society  in  the  higher 
type  of  citizen  produced — should  be  a  highly  defensible  thesis. 
But  endless  confusion  results  when  the  objectives  of  vocational 
education  and  of  liberal  education  are  confused,  or  when  it  is 
assumed  that  the  same  means  and  methods  will  serve  equally 
the  ends  of  each.  Vocational  education  in  any  properly  delimited 
meaning  of  the  words  must  have  its  processes,  its  means  and 
methods  strictly  determined  by  the  requirements  of  a  known 
calling — and  in  the  modern  world  these  tend  to  proliferate  and 
multiply  along  lines  of  specialization  to  an  almost  indefinite 
extent. 

Fortunately,  we  now  see  that  we  cannot  effectively  "voca- 
tionalize"  education  by  offering  in  a  high  school  or  college  a 
few  elective  studies  or  courses  of  an  academic  nature,  with  a 
slight  accompaniment  of  laboratory  illustration  or  practice. 
We  have  been  attempting  this  in  numberless  cases  with  agri- 
cultural, industrial  and  commercial  education — and  even  with 
home  economics,  journalism,  business  administration,  teaching 
and  social  work.  Only  recently  are  we  coming  to  perceive 
the  great  wastefulness  and  futility  of  it  all.  We  are  certainly 
destined  soon  to  have  a  system  of  vocational  schools,  the'vesti- 
buled  approaches  to  the  thousands  of  vocations  now  found  in 
civilized  society,  but  these  schools  will  be  as  definitely  differ- 
entiated from  schools  of  general  education  as  are  now  colleges 
of  law,  medicine,  dentistry  and  military  leadership.  We  may 
expect  then  that  the  functions  properly  belonging  to  schools 
not  vocational  in  purpose  will  be  revealed  more  clearly.  With 
this  knowledge,  we  can  proceed  to  devise  the  most  effective 
general  or  liberalizing  education  for  those  thousands  who  must 
or  will  close  their  general  school  in  their  fourteenth  or  fifteenth 
year;  for  those  other  thousands,  more  fortunately  situated, 
who  can  give  from  one  to  four  precious  years  to  the  liberal 
education  offered  by  the  secondary  school  before  embarking 
on  the  study  or  practice  of  a  specific  vocation ;  and  also  for  that 
minority  who  usually  combine  much  native  ability  with  fortu- 
nate home  conditions  who  aspire  to  a  "college  degree"  before 
taking  up  the  study  of  a  profession.  Here  lie  our  opportunities 
to  differentiate  the  ends  and  to  determine  the  means  of  genuine 
liberal  education. 

Among    its    larger    objectives    this    liberal    education    must 


i64  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

develop  and  conserve  for  present  and  future  generations  in 
those  who  are  to  lead,  attitudes  of  intelligent  hopefulness,  and 
faiths  in  human  improvement  and  all  that  we  call  progress. 
Toward  other  peoples  and  toward  peoples  of  different  qual- 
ities in  our  midst,  it  must  stand  for  increase  in  sympathetic 
understanding  and  mutual  helpfulness.  As  regards  the  great 
social  inheritance  of  knowledge,  customs,  and  institutions  which 
we  have  acquired  from  the  past,  its  spirit  should  be  appreciative 
and  discriminating,  based  on  the  conviction  that  some  things, 
and  some  things  only,  of  that  inheritance  have  a  vital,  a  func- 
tional significance  for  the  present  and  the  future. 

Among  the  more  specific  results  of  a  better  liberal  education, 
we  trust  that  the  men  and  women  in  the  future  will  exhibit 
a  finer  and  stronger  command  of  our  wonderful  mother  tongue 
than  is  now  the  case.  A  good  command  of  the  vernacular  is 
indeed  among  the  vague  ideals  of  our  schools  of  liberal  educa- 
tion now,  but  the  means  to  their  realization  of  this  are  seriously 
ineffective.  We  have  every  right  to  expect  the  discovery  of 
educational  means  whereby  education  toward  desirable  mastery 
of  English  can  steadily  be  improved.  There  exist  beliefs — 
shall  I  say  superstitious  beliefs  (certainly  they  rest  on  no 
adequate  evidence) — that  study  of  one  or  more  alien  tongues 
is  a  highly  desirable,  if  not  necessary,  condition  of  sound 
attainments  in  the  vernacular.  But  with  English  steadily 
evolving  toward  becoming  a  world  language,  we  can  have 
confidence  that  a  fine  command  of  it  is  possible  under  right 
methods  of  training,  even  to  those  who  have  secured  no  power 
over  another  language. 

It  will  readily  be  understood  that  well-developed  insights 
into,  and  appreciation  of,  English  literature  must  also  count  as 
an  indispensable  element  in  the  liberal  education  of  all  our  young 
men  and  women.  But  this  is  not  to  be  interpreted  as  including 
only  study  of  those  portions  of  English  literature  which  are 
held  to  be  classics.  Too  often  the  older  vernacular  literature, 
like  the  ancient  literatures  in  other  languages,  possesses  no 
functional  value  in  inspiring  youth  to  seek  to  interpret  and  to 
share  in  the  control  of  the  social  and  cultural  forces  of  the 
twentieth  century.  We  must  include  appreciations,  under- 
standings and  evaluations  of  all  that  literature  which  is  each 
year  in  process  of  being  made — and  which,  in  a  collective  way, 
often   voices   the   aspirations   and   the    forming   social   attitudes 


LATIN   AND   GREEK  165 

of  the  peoples  and  times  in  which  we  live.  Of  course,  at  present 
we  know  little  of  the  best  means  and  methods  for  the  direction 
to   such  study;   but  they  are  certainly  discoverable. 

Next  in  importance  to  the  English  language  and  English 
literature  as  means  of  liberal  education,  we  should  place  the 
social  sciences,  as  these  can  be  adapted  to  lay  secure  founda- 
tions of  insight  and  ideals  for  good  citizenship  and  fine  human 
aspiration.  But  here  again  we  must  discard  the  traditions  that 
have  heretofore  bound  us  to  the  ancient  and  the  remote.  His- 
tory, that  great  encyclopedic  massing  of  data  for  the  social 
sciences,  must  be  made  a  subject  of  reference,  not  something  to 
be  studied  for  its  own  sake  in  chronological  order  by  those 
youths  who  are  laying  the  foundations  for  genuine  humanistic 
culture.  Students  must  first  acquire  concrete  experience  and 
definite  knowledge  through  vital  contact  with  the  significant 
realities  of  the  living  present;  then,  as  occasion  offers,  and  needs 
of  interpretation  and  perspective  arise,  they  will  be  turned 
toward  those  things  in  history  that  demonstrably  do  function 
in  better  appreciation  or  understanding  of  the  things  of  today, 
tomorrow,  and  next  century.  The  range  and  variety  of  prob- 
lems to  be  solved  by  the  citizen  of  a  progressive  democracy  in 
the  twentieth  century  are  great  indeed ;  and  that  can  be  no 
true  culture,  no  true  humanistic  learning,  which  does  not  with 
sureness  of  aim  and  precision  of  method  inspire  and  train  the 
adolescent  for  their  solution. 

Few  will  dispute  the  claim  that  in  a  modern  scheme  of 
liberal  education  a  large  place  should  also  be  given  to  natural 
science.  The  science  subjects  now  found  in  our  secondary 
schools  and,  to  a  large  extent,  in  our  liberal  arts  colleges,  have 
rarely  contributed  in  any  genuine  way  to  culture.  They  have 
suffered  somewhat  from  the  opposition  of  the  former  defenders 
of  the  classics  but  still  more  from  their  misguided  friends  who 
would,  on  the  one  hand,  make  them  Cinderellas  in  the  interest 
of  vocational  competency  or  else  sharp  drillmasters  of  "scien- 
tific method"  and  the  mental  discipline  supposed  to  be  derived 
from  an  intellectual  "cure-all."  Wholly  new  objectives  and 
wholly  new  methods  are  needed  in  natural  science  teaching. 
Some  successful  experiments  pointing  ways  to  these  are  to  be 
found  even  now.  No  one  awake  to  the  larger  possibilities  of 
liberal  education  need  doubt  that  the  natural  sciences — those 
sources  of  insight  and  aspiration  that  have  largely  made  the 


i66  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

twentieth  century,  for  good  or  for  ill,  what  it  is — can  yet  be 
made  vital  means  of  liberal   education. 

There  remain  the  fine  arts  of  music,  painting,  and  sculpture. 
Our  schemes  of  so-called  liberal  education  give  little  or  no  place 
to  these  today.  But  should  not  purposive  development  of 
taste  and  insight  here  be  given  prominence  in  any  generous 
project  for  liberal  education?  Certainly  discriminating  and 
catholic  appreciation  of  these  fine  arts  constitute  a  large  element 
in  culture  as  best  understood  and  defined.  No  less,  certainly, 
when  once  the  valid  objectives  of  a  functioning  liberal  education 
shall  have  been  determined,  we  shall  find  appreciative  studies 
of  the  fine  arts  given  high  rank  among  the  means  to  that  end. 

What  do  we  desire  with  reference  to  the  classics  in  our 
schools  and  colleges  ?  Only  this :  that  they  shall  be  accorded 
no  special  favors,  given  no  artificially  protected  position.  We 
wish  the  field  of  higher  education  to  be  made  as  open  as  possible 
to  the  end  that  in  its  very  effort  to  devise,  invent,  and  create 
the  means  of  a  liberal  education  adapted  to  the  needs  of  our 
time  and  opportunities,  we  shall  not  be  hampered  by  the  dead 
hands  of  useless  tradition,  the  old  inertias  and  controls  of  an 
age  that  saw  in  a  static  civilization  the  highest  of  all  earthly 
glories. 

Do  we  wish  to  prevent  the  study  of  the  Latin,  and  especially 
of  the  Greek,  language  and  literatures?  Assuredly  not!  For 
those  with  genuine  interests  in  such  studies,  every  facility 
should  be  afforded  in  schools  and  colleges  that  can  obtain 
enough  students  to  justify  the  expense.  And  we  hope  that, 
given  fewer  students  and  the  genuinely  interested,  such  studies 
might  become,  for  a  few  at  any  rate,  genuine  wellsprings  of 
interest,  appreciation,  and  insight — something  which  is  far  from 
being  the  case  at  present. 

We  earnestly  desire  that  the  great  languages  and  literatures 
of  Greece  and  of  Rome,  and  of  every  other  age  that  has  enriched 
the  world,  shall  be  the  objects  from  time  to  time  of  careful 
inquiry  and  developed  appreciation  by  persons  mature  enough 
to  serve  as  interpreters  of  these  treasures  to  each  succeeding 
generation.  We  believe  that  from  age  to  age  in  the  light  of  our 
own  added  knowledge  and  developed  experience,  these  languages 
and  literatures  will  still  continue  to  make  their  contributions, 
as  will,  in  somewhat  similar  measure,  ancient  Irish  lore,  the 
sagas  of  the  European  northwest,  the  philosophy  of  India,  the 
religious    writings    of    Confucius,    and    even    the   mythology   of 


LATIN    AND   GREEK  167 

our  own  North  American  Indians.  To  none  of  these  sources 
of  inspiration  can  a  country  like  ours  in  its  future  evolution 
be  completely  indifferent.  From  time  to  time,  we  shall  expect 
aspiring  spirits  to  visit  these  faraway  lands  and  to  bring  back 
some  treasures  fit  for  the  adornment  of  our  temples.  For 
these  purposes,  however,  we  shall  require  no  compulsory  study 
of  these  ancient  languages  in  our  secondary  schools  or  our 
colleges.  Much  more  profitable  will  it  be  for  us  that  individuals 
themselves  take  the  initiative  from  time  to  time  in  making  the 
necessary  explorations. 

In  fact,  a  large  part  of  the  liberal  education  offered,  even  in 
the  secondary  school,  will  consist  in  the  deep  plumbing  of  a  few 
intellectual  or  aesthetic  fields  in  which  the  candidate  has  native 
interest  and  power.  Under  a  yet  to  be  developed  system  of 
educational  guidance,  each  learner  will  be  induced,  as  part  of 
this  liberal  education,  to  select  some  one  field  of  culture  and  to 
make  of  that  a  life  interest.  Among  these  might  well  be : 
Greek  language  and  literature;  17th  century  English  literature; 
modern  Japanese  language,  history,  and  literature;  violin  music; 
architecture;  "natural  history"  of  a  given  region;  some  branch 
of  social  science;  eugenics. 

The  foreign  languages,  ancient  and  modern,  and  mathe- 
■  matics — what  place  will  finally  be  reserved  for  these  subjects 
which,  despite  frequent  allegation  to  the  contrary,  now  compose 
the  heavier  part  of  practically  all  programs  of  secondary 
education  designed  as  preparation  for  college,  soley  because  of 
their  supposed  value  as  apparatus  for  mental  gymnastics?  It 
is  perhaps  too  early  to  say  with  confidence.  Algebra  and  geom- 
etry will  unquestionably  hold  a  strong  position  in  the  prevoca- 
tional  training  of  those  who  have  reasonable  expectations  of 
entering  vocations  using  mathematics  as  an  important  instru- 
ment. A  few  other  persons  may  be  expected  to  elect  them 
through  sheer  native  interest  in  the  special  intellectual  activity 
and  the  particular  insight  which  such  study  affords.  We  shall 
hope  and  expect,  too,  that  in  addition  to  those  who  study  for 
probable  vocational  use,  a  modern  language,  others  may  be 
induced  to  give  the  toil  and  enthusiasm  required  to  beget  that 
mastery  of  French,  or  Japanese,  or  Russian,  or  Spanish,  which 
shall  enable  the  fortunate  possessors  thereof,  like  generous 
amateur  musicians,  to  be  sources  of  appreciation  and  insight 
in  circles  where  they  move,  as  well  as  translators — in  the 
larger  sense  of  the  term — of  the  good  will  and  intellectual  riches 


i68  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

of  the  peoples  whose  culture  has  become  accessible  to  them 
through  the  mastered  language.  In  somewhat  similar  process 
may  we  also  expect,  as  elsewhere  suggested,  fine  spirits  to 
prepare  themselves,  from  time  to  time,  to  journey  intellectually 
in  quest  of  treasure  still  to  be  found  behind  the  linguistic  walls 
of  Greek,  Latin,   Sanscrit,   Erse,  and  Inca  writings. 

To  make  these  things  possible  in  education,  much  will  yet 
be  needed  of  courage,  faith,  inventiveness,  and  labor.  But 
these  are  even  now  extensively  enlisted  in  support  of  many 
progressive  movements  and  experimental  developments.  One 
immediate  step  that  will  help  much  is  an  educational  declara- 
tion of  independence  which  will  release  the  grip  of  one  of  the 
few  surviving  relics  of  old-world  tradition — a  declaration  of 
independence  from  the  grip  of  the  Dead  Hand  of  Latin. 


SOME  EXPERIMENTAL  DATA  ON  THE 

VALUE  OF  STUDYING  FOREIGN 

LANGUAGES  ^ 

The  value  of  studying  foreign  languages,  aside  from  the 
direct  use  of  the  modern  languages,  has  been  very  much  over- 
estimated in  some  quarters  and  perhaps  equally  underestimated 
in  other  quarters.  The  controversy  over  the  amounts  of  pure 
intellectual  discipline  of  the  various  branches  of  instruction  has 
been  the  warmest  in  the  field  of  languages,  particularly  the 
ancient  ones.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  however,  the  controversy 
could  be  just  as  animated  in  the  field  of  the  sciences,  when  one 
recalls  the  distorted  claims  of  discipline  made  for  them  in  certain 
quarters. 

This  article  will  present  some  definite  data  on  the  amount 
of  disciplinary  or  derived  value  of  certain  aspects  of  studying 
foreign  languages.  It  is  not  claimed  to  present  a  complete 
measure  of  one  or  of  all  phases  of  such  study,  but  it  is  certain 
that  definite  objective  facts  and  measurements  are  far  superior 
to   individual   opinions  based   on  haphazard  instances. 

Scholastic  records  of  students  presenting  different  languages 
for  college  entrance.— The  first  problem  considered  was  a  com- 
parison of  the  scholastic  records  of  university  students  who 
had  entered  the  university  with  two  to  four  years  of  Latin  with 

*Prof.  Daniel  Starch,  School  Review.    23:697-703.    December,   1915. 


LATIN   AND   GREEK  169 

the  records  of  those  who  had  entered  with  two  to  four  years  of 
German.  The  average  grade  for  the  four  years  of  college 
work  of  each  of  the  graduates  of  the  College  of  Letters  and 
Science  of  the  year  1910  was  computed.  The  median  mark  of 
the  104  students  who  had  entered  the  university  with  Latin 
was  85.7  and  the  median  mark  of  the  45  students  who  had 
entered  with  German  was. 84.0.  Hence  the  difference  between 
the  two  groups  is  only  1.7  points. 

The  explanation  for  this  small  advantage  of  Latin  over 
German  may  be  sought  in  three  directions :  First,  the  disciplinary 
difference  between  Latin  and  German  is  either  zero  or  very 
small.  Second,  whatever  difference  they  may  have  produced 
originally  may  have  tended  to  disappear  in  the  four  years  of 
college  work,  owing  to  the  freedom  of  electives,  pursuit  of 
different  courses,  disciplinary  effect  of  other  studies,  etc.  Third, 
the  small  difference  in  scholastic  records  may  be  due  to  an 
original  difference  in  the  students  themselves,  owing  to  the 
possibility  that  one  language  may  attract  a  better  class  of  pupils 
than  another.  It  seems  very  probable  that  if  any  real  difference 
exists  it  is  due  chiefly  to  the  third  reason. 

To  determine  what  part,  if  any,  the  first  two  factors  played, 
the  average  grade  of  each  of  the  738  Freshmen  of  the  year 
1909-10  was  computed.  The  median  grade  of  the  416  Freshmen 
who  had  entered  with  Latin  was  82.4  and  that  of  the  322  Fresh- 
men who  had  entered  with  German  was  81.0.  Hence  the 
difference  between  the  two  groups  was  only  1.4  points,  or 
approximately  the  same  as  that  for  the  graduates. 

The  next  problem  was  to  compare  the  grades  of  these  two 
groups  in  specific  subjects  as  follows : 
Median  grade  in  modern  languages  of  362  Freshmen  who 

had  entered  with  Latin 84.5 

Median  grade  in  modern  languages  of  293  Freshmen  who 

had    entered   with    German 82.3 

Difference  in  favor  of  the  Latin  group 2.2 

Median  grade  in  Freshman  English  of  54  students  who 
had   entered   with   Latin   only 83.9 

Median  grade  in  Freshman  English  of  97  students  who 
had   entered   with  German   only 82.7 

Difference  in  favor  of  the  Latin  group 1.2 


170 


SELECTED   ARTICLES 


Median  grade  in  first-year  French  of  27  Freshmen  who 
had   entered    with   Latin    only 81.5 

Median  grade  in  first-year  French  of  34  Freshmen  who 
had   entered   with   German   only 82.0 

Difference  in  favor  of  the  German  group 0.5 

The  differences  again  are  very  small.  The  claim  of  language 
teachers,  so  commonly  made,  that  beginners  in  French  who 
have  had  Latin  are  much  superior  to  those  who  have  not  had 
Latin,  or  that  students  in  English  with  previous  training  in 
Latin  are  superior  to  those  without  such  training  is  ill  founded. 
It  is  another  example,  so  common  in  educational  thinking,  of 
generalizing  from  striking,  isolated  cases.  What  differences 
do  exist  are  due  primarily  to  the  selection  of  students.  The 
pupils  who  entered  the  university  with  Latin  were  on  the  average 
better,  but  only  slightly  better,  pupils  before  they  studied  Latin 
than  those  who  undertook  German.  The  traditions  in  many 
high  schools  have  been  such  that  somewhat  better  pupils  have 
tended  to  select  Latin. 

Another  tabulation  (Table  I)  was  made  to  show  the  scholar- 
ship records  of  Freshmen  in  relation  to  the  amount  of  foreign 
languages  studied,  irrespective  of  what  the  languages  were. 

TABLE   I 


Years  of   Foreign 
Languages 

Number    of 
Students 

Median   Grade  in  All 
Freshman    Studies 

0.,., , 

25 

224 
195 
155 

81.8 

81.9 

0 A 

8^.o«> 

e — 6 

84.0 

Effect  of  studying  Latin  upon  the  size  of  one's  English 
vocabulary. — ^^The  next  problem  was  to  measure  the  extent  to 
which  a  pupil's  English  vocabulary  is  increased  through  the  study 
of  Latin.  The  method  employed  for  determining  the  size  of 
a  person's  English  vocabulary  has  been  described  elsewhere  and 
hence  will  not  be  discussed  here.^  Suffice  it  to  say  that  the 
method  employed  measures  the  percentage  of  the  entire  Eng- 
Hsh  vocabulary,  as  well  as  the  approximate  absolute  number 
of  words  whose  meaning  a  given  person  knows  sufficiently 
well    to    use    them    correctly.      The    test    was    made    with    189 

ID.    Starch,  Educational  Measurements,    Macmillan. 


LATIN   AND   GREEK  171 

university  students  and  with  46  Juniors  in  the  Madison  High 
School. 

Per  cent 
Size  of  English  vocabulary  of  139  university  students  who 

had  studied  Latin 60.9 

Size  of  English  vocabulary  of  50  university  students  who 

had   not   studied   Latin 58.2 

Size  of  English  vocabulary  of  14  high-school  Juniors  who 

had  studied  Latin 54.7 

Size  of  English  vocabulary  of  32  high-school  Juniors  who 

had  not  studied  Latin ? . . .  50.2 

The  differences  between  the  Latin  and  the  no-Latin  groups 
are  surprisingly  small.  One  of  the  reasons  commonly  urged 
for  the  study  of  Latin  is  its  tendency  to  increase  the  student's 
English  vocabulary.  The  difficulty  in  the  situation  lies  in  the 
fact  that,  while  many  English  words  are  derived  from  Latin 
sources,  the  meanings  of  the  English  words  are  often  so  warped 
or  distantly  derived  that  it  is  necessary  to  learn  the  specific 
meanings.  Simply  to  recognize  that  "boaconstrictor"  contains 
the  root  constringere,  "to  draw  together,"  will  not  teach  a  pupil 
that  it  means  a  certain  kind  of  reptile.  So  far  as  the  root- 
meaning  is  concerned,  the  word  might  have  been  applied  to 
scores  of  things  that  contract.  This  point  was  brought  out 
forcibly  by  the  students  on  whom  the  test  was  made.  The 
Latin  students  recognized  in  many  instances  the  presence  of 
Latin  roots  in  the  English  words  used  in  the  test,  but  they  could 
not  be  sure  of  the  specific  meanings  without  having  definitely 
ascertained  them.  In  many  instances  they  would  ascribe,  by 
inference  from  the  root-words,  entirely  erroneous  meanings. 
Nevertheless  the  study  of  Latin  does  produce  an  appreciably 
larger  English  vocabulary.  This  advantage  becomes  less  in 
university  students,  with  whom  it  is  partly  counterbalanced 
by  the  increase  in  vocabulary  due  to  wider  experience. 

Effect  of  studying  foreign  languages  upon  knowledge  of 
English  grammar  and  upon  correctness  of  usage  of  English. — 
The  final  problem  was  to  ascertain  to  what  extent  the  study  of 
foreign  languages  increases  a  pupil's  knowledge  of  English 
grammar  and  to  what  extent,  if  at  all,  it  increases  correct  use 
of  the  English  language.  The  methods  by  which  correctness 
of  usage  and  technical  knowledge  of  grammar  were  measured 

*  The  Measurement  of  Ability  in  Reading,  Writing,  Spelling  and  Eng- 
lish.   The  College  Book   Store,  Madison,  Wisconsin. 


172 


SELECTED   ARTICLES 


have  been  described  elsewhere.*  In  brief,  the  test  for  usage 
consisted  of  a  set  of  one  hundred  sentences,  each  of  which 
was  stated  in  two  ways.  The  task  of  the  pupil  consisted  in 
indicating  the  correct  forms.  Technical  knowledge  of  grammar 
was  measured  by  certain  tests  involving  the  designation  of 
parts  of  speech,  cases,  tenses,  and  modes.  These  tests  were 
made  upon  54  university  Juniors  and  Seniors  and  146  high- 
school  pupils.  They  gave  the  results  shown  in  Table  II,  in  which 
the  scores  for  knowledge  of  grammar  are  the  numbers  of  the 
parts  of  speech,  cases,  tenses,  and  modes  indicated  correctly 
in  a  specified  period  of  time,  and  the  scores  for  correctness 
of  usage  are  the  numbers  of  sentences  designated  correctly  in 
a  specified  period  of  time. 


TABLE  II 


Years  of  Foreign 
Languages 


Number  of 
Students 


Average  Scores 

for  Knowledge 

of  Grammar 


Average  Scores 

for  Correctness 

of  Usage 


UNIVERSITY    JUNIORS    AND    SENIORS 


UNIVERSITY    JUNIORS    AND    SENIORS 


Years  of  Latin 

0 , ,, 

15 

II 

14 

9 

45.8 
S6.1 
57.5 
61.8 

70.9 

75.7 

74.3 

S    or    more 

76.1 

Another  test  for  correctness  of  usage,  consisting  of  sentences 
like  the  set  of  one  hundred,  but  arranged  in  the  order  of 
increasingly  difficult  steps,  was  made  on  another  group  of  146 


LATIN   AND   GREEK 


173 


university  students  and  92  high-school  pupils.  This  test  yielded 
the  highest  steps  passed.  The  higher  the  score  is,  the  greater 
is  the  ability  of  using  English  correctly. 

These  tables  agree  in  showing  one  very  significant  result, 
namely,  that  the  study  of  foreign  languages  materially  increases 
a  pupil's  knowledge  of  English  grammar  but  only  slightly 
increases  his  ability  in  the  correct  usage  of  the  English  lan- 
guage. Notice,  for  example,  the  upper  part  of  Table  II.  The 
students  v^^ho  had  10  to  15  years  of  foreign  languages  made  a 
score  in  grammatical  knowledge  of  63.  as.  compared  with  a 
score  of  47.8  made  by  the  students  who  had  2  to  5  years  of 
foreign  languages,  a  difference  of  32.6  per  cent  in  favor  of  the 
former  group.  For  correctness  of  usage,  the  corresponding 
difference  is  only  6.4  per  cent.  The  two  students  with  no 
foreign  languages  made  high  scores  because  they  were  exception- 
ally good  students,  but  they  are  too  few  in  number  to  be 
considered.  The  high-school  pupils  show  a  gain  in  grammatical 
knowledge  of  37.5  per  cent  from  the  8-week  group  to  the  3-year 
group  and  a  gain  in  usage  of  only  10.9  per  cent.  The  12  pupils 
with  no  foreign  language  made  low  scores  because  they  were  ex- 
ceptionally poor  pupils.  This  is  indicated  by  their  low  scholarship 
records,  by  the  fact  that  many  were  over-age,  by  the  fact  that  they 

TABLE   III 


Years   of  Latin 

Number  of  Pupils 

Average  Scores 

HIGH-SCHOOL    PUPILS 

0 

47 
99 

lO.I 

1—6 • 

10.2 

UNIVERSITY    STUDENTS 

0 

78 
14 

9.0 
9.3 

I 4 

avoided  the  foreign  languages,  and  also  by  the  large  difference 
between  their  scores  and  those  of  the  50  pupils  who  were  just 
beginning  foreign  languages.  Eight  weeks  of  foreign  languages 
could  hardly  have  produced  such  a  big  gain.  Their  higher 
scores  must  be  due  to  a  difference  in  original  nature.  The  same 
facts  are  brought  out  by  the  comparison  for  Latin  alone.  The 
gain   of    the   5-or-more-year    group    over    the   o-year   group    in 


174  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

grammatical  knowledge  is  34.9  per  cent  and  in  correct  usage 
only  7.3  per  cent.  Latin  obviously  has  no  advantage  over  any 
other  foreign  language  in  increasing  grammatical  knowledge 
or  usage  of  English. 

Incidentally  the  implication  may  also  be  pointed  out  that 
knowledge  of  grammar  has  very  little  effect  upon  correct  usage. 
The  large  increases  in  grammatical  knowledge  are  accompanied 
by  only  very  small  increases  in  correct  usage.  Correct  usage 
is  primarily  a  matter  of  establishing  correct  habits  of  speech, 
and  grammatical  knowledge  is  useful  only  in  so  far  as  it  helps 
to  establish  such  habits.  Apparently  imitation  and  repetition  of 
correct  expression  are  far  more  efficacious  in  forming  correct 
habits  than  grammatical  knowledge.  The  recent  tendency  to 
reduce  the  time  devoted  to  formal  grammar  and  to  postpone 
the  study  of  it  to  later  years  is  in  accord  with  these  findings. 

The  argument  often  advanced  for  the  study  of  foreign 
languages,  and  particularly  for  Latin,  that  they  are  a  great  aid 
in  the  use  and  comprehension  of  English  is  unfounded.  Argu- 
ments of  this  kind  are  unnecessary.  Why  should  we  not  study 
Latin  on  its  own  account  as  a  language  and  as  a  guide  to  a 
literature  of  its  own?  Its  aid,  as  well  as  that  of  any  other 
foreign  language,  in  facilitating  the  use  of  English  is  very  small. 
Why  not  recognize  this  as  a  fact?  If  you  wish  to  know  English, 
study  EngHsh,  but  not  via  Latin  or  some  other  language.  If 
you  wish  to  know  Latin,  study  Latin  for  its  own  sake  primarily, 
an  end  sufficiently  worthy  in  itself.  The  aid  of  one  language 
in  the  study  of  another  is  only  incidental  and  unimportant, 
at  least  so  far  as  present  methods  of  teaching  foreign  languages 
go.  The  figures  presented  should  not  be  interpreted  as  an 
argument  against  foreign  languages  or  particularly  against 
Latin,  but  rather  against  certain  assumed  disciplinary,  trans- 
ferred, or  derived  benefits. 

Summary.— The  scholastic  records  of  students  in  the  univer- 
sity entering  with  Latin  are  only  to  a  slight  and  negligible 
extent  better  than  those  of  students  entering  with  German. 
Likewise,  the  scholastic  records  in  modern  languages,  either 
beginning  or  advanced,  or  in  English,  of  students  entering  with 
Latin  are  only  to  a  very  slight  extent  better  than  those  of 
students  entering  with  German.  This  slight  difference  is  prob- 
ably due  to  an  inherent  difference  in  the  students  rather  than  to 
a  difference  produced  by  these  languages. 


LATIN   AND   GREEK  I75 

The  English  vocabulary  of  pupils  who  had  studied  Latin  was 
2.7  per  cent  larger  than  the  vocabulary  of  those  who  had  not 
studied  Latin  in  the  case  of  university  students,  and  4.5  per  cent 
larger  in  the  case  of  high-school  pupils. 

The  study  of  foreign  languages  materially  increases  a 
student's  knowledge  of  English  grammar,  but  only  slightly 
increases  his  ability  to  use  English  correctly. 


EDUCATION  AS  MENTAL  DISCIPLINE^ 


When  doubts  are  suggested  as  to  the  value  of  certain  time- 
honored  subjects  included  in  the  elementary  and  secondary 
curriculum,  one  is  told  that  the  subjects  in  question  are  valuable 
because  they  'train  the  mind.'  'Training  the  mind*  is  therefore 
a  phrase  which  expresses  a  definite  educational  theory — the 
theory,  namely,  that  the  most  important  function  of  the  school 
is  to  discipline  the  mental  faculties  so  that  in  after  life  they 
will  be  serviceable  instruments  ready  for  effective  use.  The 
faculties  to  be  thus  trained  are  memory,  reason,  imagination, 
observation.  People  who  believe  in  'training  the  mind,'  or  in 
'formal  discipline,'  which  is  the  same  thing  technically  expressed, 
almost  invariably  hold  that  the  time-honored  subjects — Latin, 
algebra,  geometry,  and  so  on — best  serve  this  purpose.  They 
believe  that  subjects  which  will  themselves  probably  never 
be  used  furnish  the  most  effective  mental  gymnastics  to  use  an 
other  favorite  expression;  that  memory  developed  by  learning 
Latin  grammar,  observation  practiced  in  distinguishing  moods 
and  tenses,  reason  practiced  in  algebraic  or  geometrical  opera- 
tions, are  so  many  weapons,  in  fighting  trim,  ready  to  bp  put  to 
such  uses  as  arise  out  in  the  world  subsequently.  The  theory  of 
mental  discipline  or  formal  discipline  is  therefore  the  bulwark 
of  conventional  or  traditional  education. 

The  opposing  conception  may  be  described  as  education  on 
the  basis  of  content.  Education  on  the  basis  of  content  endeavors 
to  equip  the  pupil  with  a  varied  body  of  properly-ordered  mate- 
rial, which  will  serve  his  purposes,  stimulate  his  interests,  and 
engage  his  growing  powers.   It  selects  things  to  teach,  not  prima- 

*  Abraham    Flexner,    Atlantic    Monthly.      119:452-64.     April,    1917. 


176  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

rily  for  the  purpose  of  training  the  mind,  but  because  the  things 
are  in  themselves  useful,  satisfying,  or  inspiring — because,  in  a 
word,  they  serve  some  purpose  v^hich  is  valued  either  by  society  or 
by  the  individual,  be  the  purpose  material,  utilitarian,  artistic, 
spiritual,  or  what  not.  Education  by  content  does  not  deny 
that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  training.  Indeed,  having  once 
chosen  a  particular  subject  or  content,  it  insists  that  this  content 
should  be  so  presented  as  to  develop  the  maximum  power  and 
interest.  But  it  entirely  disbelieves  in  the  training  of  general 
faculties — a  general  memory  faculty,  a  general  reasoning  faculty, 
a  general  faculty  of  observation — on  which  the  theory  of 
formal  discipline  sets  such  great  store.  It  holds  that  really 
no  such  faculties  exist,  and  hence  that  they  cannot  be  trained. 
There  are  instead — so  content-education  believes — many  kinds 
of  memory,  many  kinds  of  reasoning  power,  many  kinds  of 
observing  faculty;  and  all  we  know  of  training  is  that  these 
various  abilities  are  within  limits  improvable  through  exercise. 
Content-education  holds,  therefore,  that,  if  the  mind  is  to  deal 
with  varied,  yet  definite  and  specific  experiences,  problems,  and 
activities,  education  or  training  should  concern  itself  with  such 
experiences,  problems,  and  activities — not  with  totally  different 
and  very  limited  problems  and  activities.  Hence  the  emphasis 
on  a  content  which  is  in  range  and  quality  fairly  representative 
of  the  world  as  a  whole  and  of  the  mind  in  all  its  varied 
interests  and  capacities.* 

American  education  is,  on  the  whole,  dominated  by  the 
former  of  the  two  conceptions  I  have  briefly  characterized — 
that  is,  by  the  theory  of  formal  discipline.  Children  study 
most  of  their  present  subjects,  not  because  they  serve  essential 
purposes  or  represent  significant  experiences,  but  because  they 
are  supposed  to  'train  the  mind.'  From  time  to  time  in  recent 
years,  to  be  sure,  content-studies  have  crept  in  or  been  forced 
in.  But  it  would  be  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  this  indicates 
a  deliberate  abandonment  of  the  disciplinary  line.  On  the 
contrary,  the  new  content-studies  have  largely  shared  the  fate 
of  the  rest  of  the  curriculum — they  have  been  taught  so  as  to 
'train  the  mind.'  Their  presence  does  not  therefore  indicate 
that  the  content-theory  is  crowding  out  the  theory  of  mental 
discipline. 

*  For  an  admirable  discussion  of  this  whole  question,  the  reader  is 
referred   to    Professor    Ernest   C.    Moore's    What  is  Education  f 


LATIN   AND   GREEK  I77 

The  frankest  and  most  unqualified  embodiment  of  the  disci- 
plinary conception  of  education  is  the  preparatory  school.  I 
single  it  out  in  this  discussion  because,  particulary  in  the  East, 
it  represents  the  kind  of  training  given  those  who  qualify  for 
admission  to  college — those,  that  is,  who  want  to  get  a  higher 
education.  It  is  true  that  increasing  numbers  enter  college,  in 
the  East  as  in  other  sections,  from  public  and  private  high 
schools  which  do  not  describe  themselves  as  preparatory  schools. 
Nevertheless  high  schools  preparing  students  for  college  have 
been  directly  and  indirectly  compelled  to  approximate  the  pre- 
paratory school  in  the  course  of  study  and  in  the  way  in  which 
the  course  of  study  is  handled.  Thus  the  influence  of  the  Amer- 
ican college  works  strongly  in  the  direction  of  fastening  on  the 
secondary  school  the  disciplinary  conception  of  education.  I  pro- 
pose in  this  paper  to  consider  this  procedure ;  in  a  subsequent 
one  I  shall  try  to  convince  college  authorities  that  they  ought  to 
promote   an   experiment   with   the   alternative   conception. 

The  preparatory  school  devotes  itself,  then,  to  mental 
discipline.  It  seeks  to  train  the  mind  by  forcing  it  to  do  intel- 
lectual tasks  mostly  of  little  inherent  interest,  but  of  gradually 
increasing  difficulty.  Some  pupils  do,  indeed,  get  interested; 
at  times  the  personality  of  the  teacher  will  irradiate  the  instruc- 
tion; at  times  the  study  takes  on  the  character  of  a  game  which 
minds  of  a  certain  type  like  to  puzzle  out.  Again,  it  happens 
that  in  every  class  certain  pupils  do  with  ease  and  almost  intui- 
tively the  tasks  that  are  defended  because  of  the  deliberate 
intellectual  effort  that  they  are  supposed  to  require  and  to  train. 
I  have  never  heard  any  believer  in  mental  discipline  explain 
what  becomes  of  the  theory  in  the  case  of  such  students — the 
students,  I  mean,  who  see  through  the  thing  in  this  rather 
effortless  fashion.  We  need  not,  however,  worry  about  them ; 
for  the  number  of  those  who  succeed  easily  because  of  interest 
in  the  game  or  because  of  native  capacity  is  not  large  enough 
to  upset  the  contention  that  most  pupils  find  intellectual  tasks  of 
the  type  employed  difficult  and  unappealing.  To  consider  what 
sort  of  training — intellectual  and  moral — these  pupils  get  out  of 
their  hard   and  dull  tasks,   is   the   main   purpose   of  this  paper. 

The  preparatory  school  curriculum  is  made*  up  of  languages, 
abstract  mathematics,  history,  and  a  bit  of  science.  On  its 
face,  it  is  predominantly  a  thing  of  words  and  symbols.  The 
mind   that   it   trains   is   therefore   necessarily   the   word-mind — 


178  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

the  mind  that  has  to  do  with  words,  the  mind  that  can  be  reached 
through  words,  and  only  in  so  far  as  it  has  to  do  with  words 
or  can  be  reached  through  words.  If  there  be  people — as  there 
surely  are — who  think  more  or  less  in  materials,  in  colors,  in 
sounds,  in  images,  in  action,  the  word-discipHne  of  the  prepara- 
tory school  is  not  for  them,  in  so  far  as  they  think  or  act  in 
those  media.  Now,  of  course,  no  education  is  going  to  dis- 
pense with  words  and  symbols,  and  the  best  possible  education 
is  going  to  make  a  large  use  of  them.  But  words  and  symbols 
are  not  used  in  the  preparatory  school  discipline  as  they  are 
used  in  daily  life.  In  daily  life  words  are  used  to  suggest  mean- 
ings or  ideas.  The  preparatory  school,  on  the  contrary,  uses 
words  and  symbols,  not  primarily  to  transmit  a  meaning,  but, 
without  emphasis  upon  meaning,  as  a  method  of  disciplining  the 
will,  the  reason,  the  power  of  analysis.  The  other  type  of 
school  I  mentioned — the  content  type — would  employ  words  and 
symbols  as  keys  to  living  subjects,  as  ways  of  summarizing 
experience,  as  stimuli  and  challenges  to  action.  Not  so  the 
preparatory  school.  The  preparatory  school  employs  words  and 
symbols  as  formal  instruments  for  disciplinary  exercise.  And, 
as  we  shall  see,  it  treats  pretty  much  all  subjects  in  pretty 
much  the  same  fashion. 

Let  me  make  sure  that  I  am  understood  when  I  say  that 
the  preparatory  school  curriculum  or  the  college-entrance  pro- 
gramme— call  it  which  you  please — is  overwhelmingly  a  thing  of 
words  and  symbols  taught  for  formal  ends.  Note  in  the  first 
place  the  prominence  of  language  studies  and  the  objects  which 
the  language  studies  subserve.  Over  one  half  the  subjects 
offered  are  languages ;  much  more  than  one  half  the  time  of 
pupils  in  school  and  out  of  school  goes  to  the  study  of  lan- 
guages— to  the  study  of  languages,  furthermore,  which  pupils 
do  not  learn  and  are  not  expected  to  learn.  I  say  the  languages 
are  not  learned;  no  one  expects  them  to  be  learned.  They  are 
taught,  not  for  the  sake  of  their  meanings,  not  to  be  used  in 
suggesting  ideas,  but  as  a  means  of  discipline. 

Now  consider  what  happens  when  a  child  studies,  without 
learning,  Latin  and  Greek.  He  commits  to  memory  paradigms, 
conjugations,  and  vocabulary.  What  is  the  process?  A 
mechanical  remembering  and  identifying  of  arbitrary  corres- 
pondents between  mere  words.  Each  particular  ending  in  Latin 
equals    something,    or   one   of   several    somethings,    in   English; 


LATIN   AND   GREEK  I79 

each  word  in  Latin  equals  something,  or  one  of  several  some- 
things, in  English.  There  is  a  list  of  cases  with  meaningless 
names  to  be  arbitrarily  accepted;  it  is  astonishing  how  glibly 
children  learn  to  employ  this  incomprehensible  terminology. 
It  is  no  part  of  the  child's  business  to  ask  why;  it  is,  in  the 
main,  his  business  to  take  the  thing  on  faith  and  to  commit  it 
to  memory.  Thus,  a  whole  series  of  declensions  is  memorized: 
in  the  first  declension,  a  long  a  is  a  symbol  to  be  mechanically 
identified  with  what  is  called  ablative  singular,  drum  a  symbol 
to  be  mechanically  identified  with  genitive  plural,  and  so  on. 
Subsequently  things  called  moods,  voices,  gerunds  are  accepted 
on  the  combined  assurance  of  the  printed  page  and  of  a  teacher 
who  treats  this  printed  page  with  convincing  gravity.  Intelli- 
gence— on  the  child's  part — is  rarely  involved;  there  is  rarely 
anything  for  him  to  understand;  there  is  rarely  any  stimulus  to 
his  wit  or  interest.  It  is,  I  repeat,  a  mechanical  process  which 
some  children  do  readily  and  some  do  not — and  there  is  an  end 
of  the  matter. 

An  enormous  mass  of  such  arbitrary  material  has  to  be 
taken  aboard  like  so  much  lifeless  freight — declensions,  conjuga- 
tions, regular,  irregular,  with  no  end  of  equally  arbitrary  excep- 
tions. Nor  does  arbitrariness  end  when  the  grammar  forms 
are  learned;  for  the  syntax  is  from  the  pupil's  point  of  view, 
generally  speaking,  just  as  arbitrary,  just  as  much  a  mattet 
of  faith.  He  is  told  that  ut  means  'that,' — 'in  order  that,'  or 
'so  that' ;  that  when  it  means  'in  order  that'  the  negative  is  ne; 
when  it  means  'so  that,'  the  negative  is  non;  once  more,  a 
mechanical  set  of  correspondences,  to  be  mechanically  memorized 
and  mechanically  applied.  So  far  as  he  is  concerned,  it  might 
as  well  be  the  other  way  round  or  any  old  way  round.  No 
reaction  which  he  can  feel  or  perceive  would  follow  the  reversal. 
Where  alternatives  are  open,  the  pupil  usually  fumbles  or  guesses ; 
some  hapless  children  have  a  diabolical  tendency  to  guess 
wrong — just  as  Mrs.  Wiggs's  children  were  carried  irresistibly 
into  an  open  rain-barrel,  when  with  the  slightest  good  fortune 
they  might  have  avoided  it.  In  such  instances  the  teacher's  dis- 
pleasure, evinced  by  a  low  mark,  not  some  untoward  experience 
with  the  rain-barrel,  is  the  pupil's  only  way  of  knowing  right 
from  wrong. 

I  do  not,  of  course,  mean  to  deny  that  now  and  then  Latin 
and  Greek  can  be  made,  and  indeed  are  made,  to  convey  a  dis- 


i8o  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

tinction  in  meaning  which  the  child  may  be  brought  to  see  is 
genuine — as,  for  example  when  the  preposition  in  and  ad  are 
distinguished.  But  even  if  such  opportunities  were  much  more 
abundant  than  they  are,  they  would  not  give  to  classical  study 
the  disciplinary  virtue  asserted  for  it.  The  content  learned  and 
the  method  by  which  it  is  learned  go  together;  the  child  cannot 
acquire  a  method  in  vacuo  with  power  to  apply  it  afterwards 
to  other  situations  that  may  arise.  The  child  who  learns  to 
make  a  verbal  distinction  learns  just  that— and  that  is  practically 
an  end  of  the  matter;  he  is  not  acquiring  a  generally  applicable 
analytical  skill.  If  the  teacher  happens  to  possess  a  wider 
interest  in  his  classics  and  if  in  consequence  his  teaching  is 
more  or  less  vitalized  thereby,  the  pupils  profit  by  just  so  much. 
The  subject  is  made  just  so  much  more  real;  its  stimulating, 
engaging,  or,  if  you  prefer,  disciplinary  effect  is  increased  by 
so  much,  and  no  more.  The  disciplinary  theory,  however,  tends 
strongly  to  restrict  the  teacher's  opportunity  to  develop  his 
subject  on  these  side  lines.  In  any  case,  the  scope  of  meaning 
or  reality  in  operating  with  dead  languages  is  as  a  pinpoint 
compared  with  vast  arid  stretches  of  formality  or  arbitrariness. 
For  the  most  part,  teacher  and  pupil  operate,  or,  better,  attempt 
to  operate  analytically  on  intellectual  lines  with  empty,  unreal 
symbols  devoid  of  the  breath  of  life. 

II 

One  half  the  subjects  of  a  curriculum  based  on  the  old- 
fashioned  college-entrance  requirements  can  thus  be  criticized 
for  many  pupils  as  mere  juggling  with  words  and  symbols — a 
juggling  which  does  not  in  the  end  hope  or  intend  to  be  familiar 
enough  with  them  to  become  unconscious  of  mechanism  and 
conscious  of  the  ideas  which  languages  are  meant  to  commun- 
icate. Nor  is  this  failure  to  learn  the  language  as  a  language  re- 
garded by  the  preparatory  school  as  a  fair  criticism ;  for  learning 
the  language  is  not  what  the  school  aims  at — so  far,  at  least,  as 
the  avowed  theory  of  the  preparatory  school  goes.  The  school 
aims  at  mental  discipline — and  the  reader  is  now  in  a  position 
to  judge  how  much  and  what  kind  of  discipline  most  pupils  get 
from  the  preparatory  school  language  studies.  Moreover,  what- 
ever they  get,  there  is  no  reason  whatever  to  suppose  that  as 
discipline  it  goes  beyond  the  particular  abilities  called  into  action 


LATIN   AND   GREEK  i8l 

by  it.  In  this  respect,  the  discipline  got  from  learning  Latin 
resembles  the  discipline  got  from  playing  chess.  You  train  what 
you  train. 

Mathematics  is  another  formal  subject,  taught,  mainly,  not 
for  the  sake  of  imparting  knowledge  that  is  or  can  be  used  to 
serve  some  purpose  or  other,  but  taught,  once  more,  because  it 
is  supposed  to  discipline  a  certain  faculty — primarily  the  reason. 
In  practice,  if  only  teachers  observed  what  happens,  it  might 
be  perceived  that  algebra  is  learned,  not  as  a  rule  by  the  exercise 
of  anything  that  can  be  properly  called  reason,  but  passively, 
mechanically,  just  as  Latin  grammar  and  Latin  syntax  are 
for  the  most  part  learned.  And  just  as  the  Latin  student  is 
reputed  to  be  successful  if  he  can  reproduce  what  he  has  taken 
in,  so  the  algebra  student  succeeds  when  he  can  mechanically 
perform  the  operations  that  the  teacher  or  the  book  performs. 
He  is  told  that  a^  X^*  =  c^^  while  2a  X  3ci  ==  6^2 ;  and,  more  or 
less  precariously,  he  comes  to  do  the  same  thing  himself. 
When  negative  or  fractional  exponents  are  reached,  he  is — as 
they  say — 'drilled'  until  hazily  and  doubtfully  he  can  carry  out 
the  same  operation.  A  bit  later,  and  in  the  same  imitative 
fashion,  he  learns  to  apply  the  binomial  theorem  or  to  solve 
quadratics  involving  two  unknown  quantities  in  this  way  or 
that,  according  as  they  resemble  this  type  or  that.  But  through- 
out he  is  dealing  with  words  and  symbols  through  which  he 
does  not  penetrate  to  the  realities  represented. 

Nor  is  the  study  illuminated  by  being  brought  to  bear.  Formal 
discipline  does  not  require  that;  as  I  pointed  out  in  discussing 
Latin,  the  tendency  is  in  the  opposite  direction.  The  disciplin- 
ary purpose  narrows  and  impoverishes.  Hence  the  preparatory 
school  curriculum  offers  nothing  in  the  way  of  science  or  indus- 
try which  might  relieve  the  teaching  of  mathematics  of  its  uncom- 
promisingly abstract  character,  or  might  tend  to  mitigate  farmal- 
ity  by  means  of  an  occasional  touch  of  reality.  In  consequence, 
save  in  rare  instances,  the  student  goes  through  a  mechanical 
exercise  to  which  he  remains  spiritually  indifferent — an  exercise 
which  does  not  tap  his  interest  or  power,  and  which  for  that 
reason  leaves  him  very  much  the  person  that  it  found  him. 
Highly  typical  is  the  girl  who  made  83  per  cent  in  algebra  in  the 
latest  college-entrance  examinations,  after  being  "prepared"  in 
one  of  the  most  successful  preparatory  schools  in  the  East 
Just   before   entering  the   examination,    she   ran   through   with 


i82  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

her  father  all  the  common  quadratic  types,  glibly  explaining 
the  appropriate  solution  of  each.  It  was  a  perfect  performance — 
mechanically  considered;  but  when  it  was  finished  and  the 
subject  dismissed,  she  suddenly  broke  out,  *0h,  by  the  way, 
father,  what  is  a  quadratic  anyway?'  Which  reminds  me  of  a 
keen  little  fellow  who  recently  explained  to  his  mother :  'You 
are  not  expected  to  understand  algebra — only  to  do  it.*  Algebra 
then,  like  Latin  and  Greek,  means  the  mechanical  handling  of 
symbols,  in  close  imitation  of  set  models.  As  a  discipline  it 
would  at  most  train  children  to  operate  imitatively  with  form- 
ulae whose  origin  and  function  they  do  not  appreciate. 

The  theory  of  formal  discipline  is  so  pervasive  that  it  has 
subdued  other  subjects  which,  it  might  be  supposed,  have  and 
can  have  only  content-value.  How,  for  example,  does  the 
preparatory  school  teach  history?  In  the  first  instance,  the 
history  selected  is  usually  Greek  and  Roman,  not  modern — a 
choice  which  sacrifices  at  once  the  powerful  motivation  of  the 
student's  environment.  Ancient  history  has,  to  be  sure,  its 
proper  place  in  education,  but  ordinary  schools  have  thought 
little  as  to  what  that  place  is.  The  choice  of  Greek  and  Roman 
history  is,  therefore,  not  a  choice  dictated  by  a  sense  of  the 
value  of  content;  still  less  is  the  treatment  calculated  to  bring 
out  content- value.  The  subject  is  presented  just  as  formally 
as  can  be.  The  unit  or  symbol  is  larger,  a  paragraph,  instead 
of  a  case  or  tense  or  formula;  but  words  and  symbols  still. 
There  is  a  textbook  of  Roman  history  in  which  things  are 
boiled  down  to  the  form  in  which  the  pupil  must  absorb  them 
with  a  view  to  their  subsequent  reproduction.  Of  the  realities 
which  these  feeble  paragraphs  vainly  attempt  to  portray,  few 
obtain  any  grasp  whatsoever.  For  the  time  being,  a  capable 
fellow  can  tell  you  the  main  features  of  the  laws  of  Solon  or 
the  Licinian  rogations.  But  the  subject-matter  was  not  chosen 
because  of  intrinsic  interest  and  importance;  and  the  teacher 
aims,  not  at  cultivation  of  historic  or  civic  interest,  but  at  a 
neat  and  presentable  formal  achievement.  One  may  well  be 
puzzled  as  to  what  faculty  is  trained  by  this  kind  of  exercise; 
a  recent  authority  tells  us  that  it  is  'memory,  imagination,  and 
social  reasoning!' 

I  mentioned  science.  In  the  last  school-year,  or  the  last 
but  one,  boys  and  girls  whose  faculties  have  for  some  eight  to 
ten   years   been    disciplined   on    case-endings,    moods,    rules   of 


LATIN   AND   GREEK  183 

syntax,  algebraic  formulae,  Euclidian  demonstrations,  Roman 
constitutions,  and  the  like,  are  permitted  to  get  a  year  of  a 
chosen  science — physics,  or  chemistry,  or  physiology.  Well, 
tardily,  to  be  sure, — but  let  us  not  be  ungrateful, — the  eager 
boy,  itching  by  this  time  for  a  contact  with  real  problems,  his 
curiosity  deadened,  but  not  yet  wholly  dead, — here  at  last,  he 
will  have  done  with  words  and  symbols ;  he  will  come  face 
to  face  with  content,  with  phenomena.  Not  so,  however.  Pre- 
paratory school  science,  like  preparatory  school  language,  pre- 
paratory school  mathematics,  preparatory  school  history,  is 
intellectual  in  aspect,  meagre  in  content,  disciplinary  in  purpose. 
The  child's  normal  scientific  interest  and  activity  are  derived 
from  the  world  of  phenomena  and  objects  in  which  he  lives. 
In  reference  to  that  world,  he  is,  as  has  been  said,  *an  animated 
interrogation  point' :  he  wants  knowledge  of  that  world ;  he 
strives  to  understand  it  and  to  do  something  with  it.  The 
content-teaching  of  science  would  heed  these  strong  instincts; 
and  discipline,  if  we  may  use  the  term,  would  come  because 
of  the  reality  and  variety  of  the  efforts  made. 

This  would  be  science  taught  from  the  standpoint  of  content. 
The  preparatory  school,  interested  in  discipline,  selects  a  single 
science, — physics  or  chemistry, — presented  in  strictly  logical  or 
intellectual  fashion,  in  a  systematic,  even  if  elementary,  form ; 
and  thereupon,  the  pupil  studies  bookishly  described  phenomena, 
experiments,  and  laws,  with  the  same  strong  emphasis  on 
memory,  mechanism,  and  faith  that  is  characteristic  of  his  study 
of  Latin  and  algebra.  He  gets  in  his  physics  and  chemistry 
as  little  sense  of  the  real  phenomenal  world  as  he  gets  sense 
of  meanings  when  he  studies  Latin,  or  sense  of  uses  when  he 
studies  algebra  or  geometry.  And  what  faculties  are  disciplined? 
Why,  the  faculties  of  'observation  and  concrete  reasoning' ! 

Thus,  our  children  study  science,  our  children  study  history, 
just  as  they  study  German  and  French  and  Latin — not  to  gain 
insight  or  mastery  or  understanding,  not  because  the  subject- 
matter  is  a  selected  portion  of  their  present  or  prospective 
experience  in  one  way  or  another  is  going  to  make  a 
difference  to  them,  but  for  the  purpose  of  disciplining  faculties 
that  do  not  exist,  by  means  of  exercises,  the  real  disciplinary 
outcome  of  which  remains  uninvestigated.  They  do  not  study 
languages  as  a  way  of  getting  at  and  conveying  ideas.  They 
do  not  study  history' as  a  way  of  arousing  and  satisfying  social 


i84  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

curiosity.  They  do  not  study  science  because  they  wonder  at 
the  world  about  them,  or  want  to  be  able,  so  far  as  may  be,  to 
understand  or  control  it.  School  science,  is,  therefore,  as  Dr. 
Wickliffe  Rose  once  remarked,  apt  to  be  'Latin  under  another 
name/ 

III 

I  am  at  a  loss  to  say  just  what  the  preparatory  school  Eng- 
lish course — or  the  college-entrance  English  requirements,  which 
is  the  same  thing — aims  to  accomplish.  It  may,  perhaps,  be 
fairly  regarded  as  an  attempted  discipline  in  taste  and  expres- 
sion. As  such,  it  is,  of  all  the  features  that  constitute  the 
preparatory  school  programme,  the  most  dismal  failure.  For  the 
futility  of  conventional  English  teaching,  in  respect  to  both  taste 
and  expression,  is  precisely  the  point  that  strikes  any  observer, 
who,  not  being  responsible  for  the  teaching,  is  compelled  to 
deal  subsequently  with  the  pupils  who  have  passed  through  it. 
A  university  law  school  professor  recently  deplored,  in  conver- 
sation with  me,  the  meagre  vocabulary,  feeble  style,  and  paucity 
of  ideas  characteristic  of  the  'picked'  students  to  whom  his 
first  professional  courses  were  addressed.  How  could  it  be 
otherwise?  The  art  of  expression  develops  where  there  is 
something  to  say;  but  the  preparatory  school  curriculum,  and, 
most  of  all,  the  English  course,  disdains  any  content  such  as 
would  give  the  pupil  something  to  say,  and,  instead,  devotes 
itself,  as  consistently  as  it  can,  to  a  'discipline,'  which  bleaches 
out  all  subjects  to  a  uniform  deadly  pallor.  As  for  taste — taste 
is  something  to  be  developed,  not  something  to  be  summarily 
forced  upon  the  pupil.  Why  should  the  long-drawn-out  analysis 
of  dull,  unsympathetic,  and  ill-adapted  'classics'  like  Comus, 
develop  an  ordinary  pupil's  taste?  and  why  should  a  man  or 
woman  who  teaches  English  for  twenty  years  be  compelled 
every  year  to  dawdle  for  days  over  L' Allegro,  II  Penseroso,  and 
Burke's  speech?  In  the  thing  itself  there  surely  resides  no 
sovereign  virtue  whatsoever — only  infinite  boredom  for  pupil  and 
teacher  alike. 

In  fact,  however,  the  English  course — like  the  Latin  course 
and  the  history  course  and  the  mathematics  course  and  the 
science  course — was  devised  by  persons  who  never  took  into 
consideration   such   factors   as  boy-nature,   girl-nature,   what   is 


LATIN   AND   GREEK  185 

left  of  teacher-nature,  or  the  realities  of  life  and  the  universe; 
and  it  is  carried  out  implicitly  by  teachers  who  do  not  compare 
what  actually  happens  with  what  the  theory  of  mental  discipline 
assumes  is  happening.  For,  just  as  soon  as  the  product  is  tested, 
— tested  as  to  knowledge  of  the  subjects  studied,  or  tested 
as  to  the  power  thereby  developed, — at  that  moment  the  whole 
structure  will  collapse  like  the  house  of  cards  that  it  is. 

Mental  discipline  thus  effaces  the  natural  distinctions 
between  different  subjects;  it  makes  Latin,  history,  mathematics, 
science,  and  English  as  nearly  as  possible  the  same.  It  empties 
the  subjects  of  content  in  order  the  more  ^effectively  to  utilize 
them  for  intellectual  discipline.  I  repeat  what  I  have  already 
said :  this  discipline  trains  what  it  trains, — not  general  faculties, 
but  specialized  abilities, — the  degree  of  specialization  depending 
on  the  relative  breadth  of  narrowness  of  the  presentation;  on 
the  extent,  that  is,  to  which  discipline  forgets  itself  and  for 
the  time  being  becomes  content.  Dr.  Rose  very  aptly  compares 
the  champions  of  mental  discipline  to  the  Egyptian  priests  who 
planted  rows  of  dead  sticks  which,  for  disciplinary  purposes, 
they  watered  regularly;  had  they  planted  com,  they  would 
have  got  the  same  discipline,  and  something  more :  the  corn,  for 
example,  and  everything  directly  and  indirectly  involved  therein. 

The  champions  of  mental  discipline  do  not  usually  try  to 
prove  their  case  by  testing  the  faculties  supposed  to  have  been 
trained.  From  time  to  time  a  business  man  avers  that  his 
classical  training  lay  at  the  bottom  of  his  commercial  success; 
and  some  engineers  are  credibly  reported  to  have  expressed  the 
same  sentiment.  But  retrospection  is,  to  say  the  least,  unreliable. 
I  do  not  forget,  of  course,  the  examinations — the  preparatory 
school  examinations  and  the  college-entrance  examinations. 
But  these  examinations  do  not  test  the  faculties  which  mental 
discipline  claims  to  have  trained;  they  are  not  tests  of  memory- 
power,  reasoning-power,  observation-power,  imagination.  They 
test  only  whether  the  candidate  remembers  the  things  by 
means  of  which  the  faculties  in  question  are  said  to  have  been 
trained.     If  a  boy  is  required  to  learn 

amnis,  axis,  callis,  crinis, 
cassis,  caulis,  fascis,  finis, 
funis,  fustis,  ignis,  ensis, — 
orbis,  panis,  piscis,  mensis. 


i86  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

in  order  to  train  his  memory,  you  do  not  prove  his  memory  to 
have  been  trained  by  requiring  him  to  repeat  the  lines  (especially 
if,  as  is  usually  the  case,  he  has  forgotten  most  of  them).  Nor 
do  you  prove  that  a  long  succession  of  geometrical  propositions 
has  trained  his  reasoning  power,  because  he  can  reproduce  the 
simpler  ones,  after  hard  drilling  on  them.  You  merely  prove 
that  a  person  who  has  done  a  thing  often  enough  can  sometimes 
do  the  same  thing  again — ^more  particularly,  if  he  has  been  warned 
in  advance  as  to  just  when  he  may  be  called  on  to  do  it.  Mean- 
while, certain  types  of  memory  and  reasoning  power  and  obser- 
vation might  really* be  tested;  but,  to  prove  the  preparatory 
school  contention,  these  powers  would  have  to  be  tried  on 
material  that  is  both  fresh  and  varied.     This  is  not  done. 

A  much  more  limited  test  might  however  have  its  uses — 
namely,  a  test  of  the  power  of  pupils  in  the  very  subjects  with 
which  they  have  been  working.  The  school  tests  and  the  college- 
entrance  tests  are  not  sufficiently  objective;  besides,  the  results 
have  not  been  studied  in  a  away  to  throw  light  on  the  funda- 
mental questions  involved.  Latin  is  taught — ^we  are  told — so  as 
to  train  the  mind.  Very  well;  let  us  find  out  in  the  first  place, 
how  well  it  is  taught.  A  certain  state  superintendent  of  educa- 
tion *  has  recently  asked  every  fourth-year  high-school  Latin 
pupil  in  his  state  to  tell  in  writing  the  meaning  of  a  piece  of 
simple  Latin  prose.  On  the  basis  of  the  performance  he  makes 
a  preliminary  estimate  of  the  efficiency  of  Latin  teaching  in  his 
state  as  between  lo  and  15  per  cent.  This  result  and  other 
results  not  a  whit  more  encouraging  ought  to  suggest  to 
believers  in  mental  discipline  a  series  of  problems.  If  Latin  is 
taught  to  train  the  mind,  how  successfully  must  it  be  taught  in 
order  to  train  the  mind?  Is  any  kind  of  result  better  than  none 
at  all?  Is  an  inferior  result — failure  in  greater  or  less  degee — 
capable  of  harming  the  mind  or  character?  What  does  an 
efficiency  of  15  per  cent  signify?  Does  it  guarantee  training,  or 
may  it  indicate  damage?  If  it  should  be  decided  that  15  per  cent 
efficiency  is  not  helpfully  disciplinary,  then  just  where  shall  the 
line  be  drawn?  Suppose  we  tentatively  assume  that  an  efficiency 
of  60  or  75  per  cent  indicates  a  trained  mind,  can  an  efficiency 
of  15  per  cent,  objectively  measured,  be  raised  to  an  efficiency 
of  60  or  75  per  cent,  similarly  measured,  and  if  so,  how?  Is 
success  in  this  possible?  If  possible,  what  would  it  cost  in  time, 
effcrt,  and  money?  Would  it  be  worth  what  it  cost  to  all,  or 


LATIN   AND   GREEK  187 

'only  to  those  who  can  achieve  it  with  a  moderate  expenditure?  If 
a  low  final  grade  indicates  damage,  what  shall  be  done  for  those 
who  cannot  be  brought  above  it?  Obviously  the  same  questions 
can  and  should  be  raised  as  to  the  other  subjects  in  the  disciplinary 
curriculum.  And  when  the  disciplinarians  begin  to  study  educa- 
tion in  a  scientific  spirit,  they  will  entertain  such  questions  and 
patiently  seek  the  answers  to  them. 

Before  leaving  the  subject,  I  must  touch  on  one  other  point. 
Mental  discipline  is  sometimes,  as  I  have  said,  called  a  'gym- 
nastic,' and  it  is  held  to  be  justified  by  the  bodily  analogy.  I 
do  not  want  to  be  entangled  in  a  discussion  based  on  metaphors ; 
the  metaphors  are  too  apt  to  come  between  the  disputants  and 
their  subject.  But  so  much  I  may  say:  the  physical  gymnasium 
may  or  may  not  train  the  muscles  for  other  uses;  at  any  rate, 
it  makes  only  a  limited  demand  daily  on  the  time  and  energy  of 
the  boy;  it  leaves  him  free  to  cultivate  other  forms  of  physical 
expression  and  urges  the  wholesomeness  of  so  doing.  Not  so  the 
mental  disciplinarians.  Their  procedure — meagre  and  one-sided 
though  it  be — tends,  by  mere  pressure,  if  not  otherwise,  to 
exclude  other  forms  of  mental  and  spiritual  activity.  At  a 
time  when  pupils  are  being  formally  disciplined  and  mentally 
trained  by  means  of  six  subjects  all  presented  in  the  same 
fashion,  one  might  suppose  that  teachers,  supposed  to  be  students 
and  observers  of  the  adolescent  mind  and  soul,  would  be  aware 
of  other  potential  interests  and  capacities  that  must  be  given  a 
chance.  Not  at  all.  Children  with  a  turn  for  the  woods,  for 
animals,  for  poetry,  for  music,  for  modeling,  for  drawing,  or 
with  the  possibility  of  such  a  turn,  have  no  right  to  be  heard  as 
against  the  sure  intellectual  and  moral  salvation  promised  by 
a  mental  disciphne,  which  has  never  been  subjected  by  its 
votaries  to  a  critical  examination !  If  the  grind  destroys  or 
starves  out  their  possibilities — well,  their  'faculties'  have  been 
trained ! 

IV 

When  I  say  that  American  schools  generally  are  committed 
to  the  theory  of  formal  discipline,  I  do  not  mean  that  other 
claims  are  not  from  time  to  time  also  advanced.  Latin  and 
Greek  are  occasionally  defended  on  the  ground  of  their  culture- 
value.    The  champions  of  formal  discipline  appear  not  to  realize 


i88  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

that  the  culture  argument  flatly  contradicts  the  disciplinary 
theory,  and  really  accepts  the  content  view  of  education.  In 
any  event,  the  methods  pursued  and  the  results  obtained  belie 
the  culture  argument.  Latin  and  Greek  have  culture-value  only 
for  those  who  learn  the  languages  and  read  the  literatures.  But 
so  few  of  those  who  study  Latin  and  Greek  learn  them,  read 
their  literatures,  or  take  any  interest  in  their  literatures,  that 
the  culture  claim  ca»not  be  taken  seriously  as  a  ground  for 
general  and  enforced,  study  of  Latin  or  Greek.  If,  of  course, 
any  one  desires  to  learn  Latin  or  Greek  as  he  would  undertake 
to  learn  French  or  German,  and  for  the  same  kind  of  reason,  no 
objection  could  be  urged,  for  such  study  would  be  calculated 
to  realize  culture-value — which  is  a  real  and  not  a  formal  end. 
But  an  argument  for  the  classics  based  on  the  assumption  that 
they  are  to  be  mastered  and  appreciated  cannot  possibly  serve 
as  an  argument  for  a  study  that  does  not  result  in  mastery  or 
appreciation,  and  is  not  expected  to  result  in  either.  It  is  a 
tactical  blunder  for  believers  in  classical  culture  to  make  com- 
mon cause  with  the  mental  disciplinarians,  for  classical  culture 
can  thus  only  be  involved  in  the  ruin  which  has  overtaken  mental 
discipline. 

Precisely  the  same  must  be  said  of  any  argument  for  Latin 
or  Greek  on  the  ground  that  higher  education  must  transmit 
the  inheritance  of  the  race.  The  transmission  of  culture  in  the 
shape  of  literature,  art,  history,  philosophy— this  is  content- 
eduCation,  not  disciplinary  education.  Transmission  can  be 
effected  either  through  the  original  language,  or  through  trans- 
lation, or  through  both.  But  if  through  the  original,  then  the 
language  must  be  learned,  just  as  French  is  learned,  as  a  medium 
for  the  communication  of  ideas.  The  disciplinary  purpose  is 
once  more  a  contradiction.  Persons  who  really  believe  in  the 
culture  argument  or  the  transmission  argument  cannot  too  soon 
extricate  themselves  from  their  present  educational  company; 
they  belong  on  the  content  side.  Instead  of  defending  education 
of  the  disciplinary  type,  they  ought  to  be  raising  the  question  as 
to  how  in  this  busy  modern  world  the  content  of  ancient  culture 
can  be  conserved  and  transmitted.  Whatever  the  way,  it  will 
not  be  through  schools  organized  and  conducted  on  the  theory 
of  mental  discipline. 

The  situation  in  respect  to  the  theory  of  formal  discipline  is, 
indeed,  a  curious  one.  It  dominates  American  education  generally ; 


LATIN   AND   GREEK  189 

it  receives  in  the  preparatory  school  a  clean-cut,  unqualified 
embodiment.  Our  educational  administrators  thus  accept  it, 
believe  in  it,  practice  it.  Meanwhile,  among  students  of  the 
science  and  art  of  education, — that  is,  among  those  who  are 
concerned  with  the  study  of  educational  processes  and  results, — 
the  theory  of  formal  discipline  has,  nowadays,  no  standing 
whatever.  It  is  as  though  the  students  of  disease  believe,  let 
us  say,  in  the  germ  theory,  while  the  practitioners  of  medicine 
took  no  stock  in  it  at  all.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  practitioners 
of  medicine  listen  to  the  students  of  disease;  but  educational 
administrators  are  still  wary  of  psychologists  and  such  folk ! 

For  our  present  purpose,  I  need  not  argue  the  case  against 
formal  discipline  further.  It  is  clear  that  its  psychology  is 
seriously  at  fault ;  for  the  faculties — ^memory,  reason,  etc. — which 
formal  discipline  thinks  to  train  in  such  wise  that  they  can 
afterwards  be  used  to  deal  with  any  problem  or  emergency 
that  arises,  simply  do  not  exist  in  separate  form.  Memory, 
reason,  imagination  are  not  single  entities  which  can  be  disci- 
plined once  for  all.  There  are  all  sorts  of  ways  of  remembering, 
reasoning,  and  imagining;  so  that,  from  the  standpoint  of 
training,  not  a  monotonous,  verbal,  and  intellectual  set  of 
exercises  is  needed,  but  rather  all  kinds  of  physical  and  intel- 
lectual experience.  Further,  formal  discipline  errs  in  belittling 
the  possibilities  of  interest,  in  ignoring  the  urgency  of  knowl- 
edge and  power  adapted  to  practical  needs,  social  and  personal, 
and,  finally,  in  overlooking  the  significance  and  importance  of 
individual  capacity.  It  is  at  once  false  in  its  psychology  and 
too  narrow  in  its  outlook. 


A  school  that  concerned  itself  with  content  would  begin  by 
asking  what  children  naturally  do  and  are  capable  of  doing; 
what  tasks  life  imposes;  what  accomplishments  are  of  inherent 
value;  what  different  sorts  of  ability  can  be  profitably  and 
happily  employed.  It  would  set  out  to  guide  and  to  develop  the 
interests  and  abilities  of  children;  it  would  select  from  the 
objective  world  significant  objects — languages,  literature,  art, 
civics,  industry,  physical  phenomena — in  the  hope  of  making  them 
objects  of  genuine  and  significant  concern  to  growing  boys  and 
girls.     It  would  not  bother  with  discipline  in  the  abstract;  but 


IQO  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

it  would  endeavor  so  to  do  its  work  that  habits  and  attitudes 
of  the  right  kind  would  tend  to  become  the  ways  in  which  the 
individual  expressed  himself.  In  a  content  school  such  as  I  am 
describing  one  would  study  languages  in  order  to  understand 
them,  to  use  them,  to  have  access  to  the  ideas  stored  up  in 
them,  to  satisfy  one's  curiosity,  if  one  will,  about  their  history, 
structure,  and  so  forth.  But  always  one's  aim  would  be  involved 
in  the  language,  not  in  some  supposed  medication  of  one's 
mental  faculties  through  it.  Again,  one  would  study  science, 
not  to  discipline  the  mind,  but  to  serve  a  purpose  through 
knowing  the  subject;  the  same  would  be  true  of  history  and 
literature.  Science,  literature,  history,  modern  languages,  indus- 
trial processes,  would  be  taught  because  they  answer  the  ques- 
tions which  live  people  ask  and  can  be  led  to  ask,  or  because  they 
in  their  substance  minister  to  our  needs,  capacities,  or  aspira- 
tions,— taught,  that  is,  because  they  serve  purposes  and  in  order 
that  they  may  serve  purposes. 

Some  of  the  purposes  will  be  what  some  people  might,  per- 
haps, call  low ;  some  of  the  purposes  will  be  what  they  might 
be  pleased  to  call  high.  We  can  afford,  however,  to  be  less 
concerned  with  the  topography  of  the  purposes  than  with  the 
reality  or  genuineness  of  the  results.  If  literature  can  be  taught 
so  that  there  is  a  vital  connection  between  school  and  home 
reading;  if  history  can  be  taught  so  that  it  supplies  the  child 
with  answers  to  his  problems  and  raises  more  problems  still; 
if  languages  can  be  taught  so  that  they  can  be  used;  if  science 
can  be  taught  so  that  the  world  about  us  is  either  intelligible 
or  intelligently  unintelligible;  if  industry  can  be  so  utilized  that 
the  child  can  understand  and  sympathize,  it  is  immaterial  by 
what  adjective  either  the  effort  or  the  result  is  described.  Is  it 
not  clear  that  this  way  of  studying  restores  to  every  subject 
its  proper  individuality  and  thereby  engages  the  mind  in  various 
ways?  There  could  indeed  be  no  greater  absurdity  than  to 
divorce  training  from  content,  even  were  it  possible;  all  the 
advantage  lies  the  other  way.  In  other  words,  the  purpose  for 
which  subjects  are  taught  lies,  not  in  the  pupil's  mind,  but  in 
the  subject-matter  and  its  relations  to  existence  and  life;  and 
the  more  varied  and  appealing  and  trying,  if  you  will,  the 
subject-matter,  the  better  for  the  boy,  whether  the  result  be 
viewed  from  the  standpoint  of  discipline  so-called,  or  from  the 
standpoint   of   knowledge,   interest,   and   power.     The   purposes 


LATIN   AND   GREEK  191 

inherent  in  subject-matter  and  its  world-relations  are  infinite 
in  variety.  Some  arc  utilitarian ;  some  spiritual.  Some  are 
mediate — that  is,  lead  elsewhere ;  some  end  with  their  own  attain- 
ment. But  they  are  always  and  invariably  real,  not  formal ; 
and  discipline  comes — if  it  comes  at  all — through  exercise  and 
experience  with  various  realities. 

At  heart,  intelligent  teachers  of  the  classics  must  know  this 
just  as  well  as  we  do;  they  must  in  their  candid  moments  admit 
to  themselves  that  they  hold  on  to  the  theory  of  mental  dis- 
cipline because  their  present  subjects  are  not  successfully 
taught  as  content.  They  defend  Latin  and  Greek  as  instru- 
ments of  mental  discipline;  but  they  know  perfectly  well  that 
that  is  not  why  Latin  and  Greek  came  into  education.  Latin 
and  Greek  came  into  education  as  real  subjects,  not  as  formal 
subjects;  they  came  into  education  because  they  embodied  more 
valuable  thoughts  than  other  languages,  and  because  except 
through  learning  Latin  and  Greek  the  thoughts  were  not  acces- 
sible. Suppose  even  to-day  someone  invented  a  way  to  teach 
Latin, — a  way  to  teach  it  so  that  preparatory  school  pupils  could 
speak  it,  read  it,  care  for  its  literature, — would  not  the  prepara- 
tory schools  jump  at  it  and  never  mention  mental  discipline 
again?  Do  they  not  really  know  that  there  is  more  good  of 
one  kind  or  another  to  be  got  out  of  knowing  a  language  than 
out  of  the  discipline  acquired  through  failure  to  learn  it? 

Consider  the  question  from  another  angle.  I  know  a  family 
of  children  whose  father  reads,  writes,  and  speaks  Latin.  It 
is  to  him  a  language  in  the  same  sense  and  for  the  same  purpose 
as  English  and  French.  His  children  are  acquiring  Latin  as 
they  are  acquiring  English  and  French.  There  is  no  question 
of  grammar  or  syntax,  of  formal  or  of  informal  discipline. 
They  are  absorbing  Latin  through  their  pores.  Is  this  a  bad 
thing  or  a  good  thing?  Are  those  children  acquiring  a  language 
at  the  expense  of  a  discipline?  Are  they  getting  culture  by 
sacrificing  mental  training,  and,  perhaps,  moral  training,  too? 
Are  we  to  say  that,  if  Latin  could  be  learned  as  children  grow 
up,  because  it  is  spoken  in  the  household,  the  loss  to  intellectual 
training  would  be  utterly  disastrous?  Of  course,  no  one  believes 
this.  Everybody  knows  that  the  value  of  Latin  is  in  knowing 
Latin,  as  the  value  of  French  is  in  knowing  French,  and  the 
value  of  botany  is  in  knowing  botany,  and  in  using  it  to  solve 
problems   and    serve   purposes;    and   that   thorough   and   varied 


192  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

knowledge  in  this  sense  is  effective  as  training  because  it 
involves  wide,  varied,  stimulating,  and  resourceful  employment 
of  one's  capacities.  If,  then,  Latin  is  to  remain  in  the  curri- 
culum, it  remains  in  order  to  be  learned;  and  if  it  goes  out,  it 
goes  out  because  it  is  not  learned,  or  because  other  languages 
or  other  subjects  are  better  worth  while. 

In  conclusion,  a  word  by  way  of  quieting  the  apprehensions 
of  those  who  fear  that  real  studies  will  weaken  character 
through  appealing  solely  to  spontaneous  interest  and  through 
following  slavishly  its  vicissitudes.  I  observe  here  once  more 
indications  that  the  disciplinarians  have  not  exerted  themselves 
to  understand  the  opposing  theory,  and  have  not  carefully 
reflected  upon  their  own  practice.  When,  for  example,  they 
discover  a  teacher  of  Greek  who  interests  his  pupils  and  arouses 
their  enthusiasm,  they  do  not  discharge  him.  They  do  not  tell 
him  to  make  the  work  disciplinary  by  making  it  dull;  they 
raise  his  salary.  If  interest — whether  native  or  -derived — is 
salutary  in  respect. to  Greek,  why  is  it  dangerous  in  connection 
with  a  modern  subject  or  activity?  Now  let  me  say  that  in 
my  judgment  every  teacher,  every  parent,  every  business  man, 
every  person  responsible  for  any  kind  of  result,  will  do  well 
to  enlist  the  most  vigorous  possible  interest  on  the  part  of 
those  with  whom  he  is  trying  to  work.  That  only  means  that 
the  workers  are  active,  assertive,  that  their  powers  are  mobiHzed 
— the  very  attitude  that  a  good  teacher  or  effective  leader  aims 
to  procure. 

I  do  sincerely  hope  that  every  teacher  in  a  modern  school 
will  have  enough  common  sense  to  do  this.  The  preparatory 
schools  themselves  do  it  when  they  can,  and  are  right  in  so 
doing.  Interest,  whether  native  or  derived,  is  indeed  the  most 
direct,  though  not  the  only,  path  to  moral,  intellectual,  and 
economic  salvation.  So  far  from  being  a  source  of  possible 
demoralization,  it  is  the  most  certain  means  of  preventing  just 
that. 

Perhaps  it  may  be  said  in  reply  that  it  is  not  so  much 
interest  that  is  to  be  dreaded,  as  the  heeding  of  variable  and 
inconstant  interests.  But  this  is  a  manufactured  bogey.  The  mod- 
ernist does  not  propose  to  follow  up  every  interest:  he  proposes 
to  select  and  to  develop  significant  interests.  Nor  does  he  pro- 
pose to  heed  only  the  child's  native  interests  and  to  drop 
activities  as  soon  as  interest  flags.  Subjects  and  activities  will 
be  selected  because  they  serve  purposes.     Many  of  them  will 


LATIN   AND   GREEK  193 

be  interesting,  if  teachers  are  fairly  competent — the  more,  the 
better.  But  they  will  be  taught  because  they  serve  purposes, 
not  because  they  tickle  the  palate,  and  they  will  be  taught 
thoroughly  enough  to  serve  their  purposes,  whether  they  cease 
or  continue  to  interest.  Difficult  things  will  be  done — some 
with  zest,  let  us  hope,  others  by  hard  pulling  against  the  stream. 
In  both  cases — as  in  all  cases — the  effort  will  lead  somewhere, 
and  it  will  be  supported  by  the  consciousness  that  it  does  lead 
somewhere.  Meanwhile,  such  effort  involves  no  surrender  of 
the  principle  that  interest,  derived  as  well  as  native,  forms  a 
legitimate  and  powerful  motive.  I  should  work  it  to  the  limit; 
I  feel  sure  that  far  more  can  be  done  with  it  than  is  commonly 
done ;  but  it  is,  after  all,  only  one  aspect  of  a  complicated 
problem,  and  no  well-informed  person  has  ever  made  it  the 
sole  criterion  of  educational  value. 


THE  TEACHING  OF  ENGLISH  ^ 

English  is  probably  both  the  least-taught  and  the  worst- 
taught  subject  in  the  whole  educational  field.  It  is  bad  in 
the  grade  schools,  worse  in  the  high  schools,  worst  in  the  college, 
while  the  university  reaps  the  full  benefit  of  the  evil  crescendo. 
The  "English"  of  the  modern  curriculum  varies  from  a  silly 
combination  of  "Mother  Goose"  and  the  jargon  of  science  or  the 
shibboleths  of  religion  to  a  disingenuous  synthesis  of  antique 
philology  and  emasculated  literature.  No  wonder  some  of  the 
men  and  women  who  speak  and  write  their  language  well 
would  extend  to  prose  the  judgment  passed  upon  poetry:  English 
untaught  is  taught  best.  A  teacher  of  English  is  so  often  a 
spoiler  of  English.  Sometimes  the  only  advice  to  a  young  man 
(less  often  a  young  woman)  contemplating  a  serious  composition 
in  his  mother-tongue  is  that  of  Punch  in  the  case  of  marriage : 
"Don't."  How  does  it  happen  that  a  man  like  John  Bright,  who 
never  had  the  advantages  of  a  classical  or  a  college  education, 
spoke  and  wrote  perfect  English,  while  our  well-trained  men 
of  science  can  often  do  neither? 

In  the  present  brief  essay  the  writer,  from  his  own  experi- 
ence and  investigation,  desires  to  discuss  some  of  the  causes  of 
this  state  of  affairs  and  to  suggest  some  common-sense  remedies. 

A  New  Orientation.    Before  we  can  expect  good  English  both 

*  Alexander  F.  Chamberlain,  Pedagogical  Seminary.  9:161-8.    June,  1902. 


194  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

teachers  and  pupils,  together  with  the  public  interested  in  edu- 
cational, affairs,  must  orient  themselves  anew  concerning  the 
origin  and  development  of  their  mother-tongue.  The  study  of 
English  seems  about  the  last  place  to  feel  the  full  effect  of  the 
Darwinian  revolution.  With  wonderful  obstinacy  it  keeps  its 
face  toward  the  setting  instead  of  the  rising  sun,  toward  the 
past  rather  than  the  future.  It  would  be  a  decided  advantage 
were  every  teacher  compelled  to  take  a  course  in  modern 
Chinese  instead  of  in  ancient  Greek,  for  then  he  would  possess 
some  useful  knowledge  about  the  form  of  human  speech  most 
akin,  psychologically,  to  his  own  and  not  so  much  useless 
lumber  concerning  that  one  most  remote  from  it.  Herein 
lies  the  essence  of  the  new  orientation.  Let  us  study  English 
in  its  relation  to  the  only  tongues  that  can  ever  compete  with 
it  for  the  mastery  of  the  world, — Russian,  Chinese,  Japanese. 
The  recognition  of  the  psychological  kinship  of  EngUsh  and 
Chinese  in  particular  may  be  of  more  moment  to  the  race'  than 
was  the  discovery  of  the  linguistic  unity  of  the  Aryan  of  the 
Indus  and  of  the  Thames.  The  Greek,  Latin,  and  Sanskrit 
aspects  of  English  have  been  fearfully  overdone.  We  must 
exorcise  the  ghost  of  Max  Miiller  and  hold  out  tete-a-tete  with 
the  living  yellow  man  who  clings  to  his  speech  and  propagates 
his  kind  so  well.  We  can  be  very  sure  he  will  still  be  numerous 
and  interesting  when  the  last  English  grammar  has  been  writ- 
ten. A  course  in  Chinese  will  reveal  to  the  teacher  in  con- 
vincing fashion  that  his  language  is  a  vehicle  of  thought  and 
not  a  museum  of  grammar,  and  that,  in  matters  of  speech,  the 
brains  of  400,000,000  Mongolians  and  100,000,000  Anglo-Saxons 
have  moved  upon  remarkably  similar  lines  representing,  psy- 
chologically, the  high- water  mark  of  human  achievement.  This 
is  the  best  antidote  for  the  classical  nostrum, — to  be  taken 
quant,  suff.  The  study  of  English  must  be  keyed  to  the  future 
not  to  the  past. 

A  Broader  Field  of  Comparison.  Some  of  the  poor  character 
of  English  teaching  is  certainly  due  to  Hmitation  of  the  field  of 
comparison.  The  individuality  of  the  mother-tongue  has  been 
lost  sight  of  and  its  special  virtues  underestimated  by  the  long- 
continued  over- valuation  of  the  merely  formal  qualities  of 
Greek  and  Latin.  A  like  effect  has  been  produced  by  what^ 
Lenz  calls  the  "deification"  of  Sanskrit.  Under  the  pernicious 
influence  of  the  classicists,  the  so-called  "modern  languages"  of 


LATIN   AND   GREEK  I95 

continental  Europe  have  been  simply  pitied  or  despised,  until 
the  crying  needs  of  commerce  and  world-politics  forced  them 
into  the  educational  field.  The  neglect  of  the  other  living 
languages  of  mankind  has  been  absolute, — the  new  facts  gained 
from  the  investigation  of  Asiatic  and  American  Indian  families 
of  speech  have  not  yet  come  into  the  ken  of  the  "expert"  in 
English,  who  is  woefully  ignorant  of  the  general  principles  of 
linguistic  evolution  and  often  the  exponent  of  some  artificial 
system  of  instruction  in  which  the  grammar,  the  dictionary  and 
the  text-book  take  the  place  of  living  thought  and  its  genial 
expression.  A  good  waking  up  of  the  teacher  along  this  line 
is  absolutely  necessary.  Some  up-to-date  discussion  of  the 
essentials  of  comparative  philology  should  find  a  place  in  every 
normal  school,  and  as  much  of  it  as  can  be  readily  understood 
be  given  to  the  pupils  in  every  high  school.  Then  we  will  not 
find  a  graduate  of  one  of  the  best  high  schools  in  Massachusetts 
leaving  its  halls  under  the  impression  that  English  is  a  descend- 
ant of  modern  High  German,  or  believing  that  all  new  words 
in  the  language  must  be  derived  from  Greek  or  Latin.  The 
calamitous  effect  of  such  ideas  upon  the  use  of  English  as  a 
tool  of  thought  is  only  too  apparent. 

No  Language  a  Model  for  Another. — It  is  an  idea  born  of 
methods  of  monks  and  pedants  that  the  Latins  and  the  Hellenes 
in  laying  the  foundations  of  their  own  languages  were  intent 
upon  improving  the  style  of  modern  English.  Every  tongue 
is  sui  generis  as  a  factor  in  human  evolution.  English  in  this 
respect  is  absolutely  independent  of  Greek  and  Latin,  whose 
contributions  were  in  no  way  foreordained  or  predestined  for 
the  purpose  of  eking  out  the  time  of  the  grade-school  and 
teaching  young  Americans  how  to  read,  write  and  speak  their 
mother-tongue.  For  the  ordinary  boy  and  girl  the  inflections 
and  conjugations  of  the  classical  languages  are  simply  a  mill- 
stone around  the  neck, — English  has  decreed  that  they  be  "cast 
as  rubbish  to  the  void,"  and  our  language  should  be  taught 
as  it  is  and  not  as  if  it  were  a  Greek  or  Latin  dialect.  Its 
progress  as  a  form  of  speech  practically  without  inflection  should 
be  the  important  thing,  not  the  minute  dissection  of  the  skins 
it  has  sloughed  off,  the  organs  it  has  reduced  to  innocuous 
desuetude.  What  makes  English  English  outweighs  the  relics 
of  its  earlier  days.  Not  the  fossil  grammar,  but  the  living 
speech,  is  matter  for  education.     One  will  write  and  speak  his 


196  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

language  better  when  his  attention  is  given  to  that  toward  which 
it  is  moving  rather  than  that  from  which  it  has  broken  away. 
Some  information  about  the  bed-fellow  in  the  next  lodging- 
house  is  better  than  a  plethora  of  detail  about  the  one  in  the  last. 
Latin  not  the  Basis  of  English. — Latin  has  no  more  shaped 
the  English  tongue  than  Rome  has  built  the  Saxon  heart  or 
made  the  Saxon  arm.  English  grammar  is  soundly  Anglo- 
Saxon  run  through  the  sieve  of  a  mind  that  never  had  a  Latin 
bent.  The  good  red  blood  of  the  vocabulary  is  Saxon  too. 
After  1,500  years  of  subjection  to  Latin  influence  English  is 
still  English.  Soldier,  churchman,  litterateur,  statesman,  sci- 
entist, have  in  succession  been  the  advocates  of  Latin,  but  in 
vain.  It  has  always  been  Mrs.  Partington  engaged  in  the  same 
old  attempt  to  turn  the  tide  with  a  broom.  From  the  unfath- 
omable depths  of  the  Teutonic  ocean  has  come  the  mighty 
rush  of  waters  overwhelming  the  Latin  shallows  and  treating 
them  to  a  bath  of  good  Saxon  brine.  All  the  Latin  in  modern 
English  is  thus  pretty  well  pickled.  Before  it  went  into  the 
brine,  too,  every  bit  of  Latin  had  the  Anglo-Saxon  meat-in- 
spector's mark  put  on  it.  And  a  good  many  carasses  went  to 
the  soap-factory.  The  teacher  of  English  needs  to  know  that 
Latin  has  no  skeleton-key  by  which  to  open  the  doors  of  Eng- 
lish at  will.  To-day  Latin  can  enter  English  speech  only  by 
the  same  door  through  which  come  Russian,  Persian,  American 
Indian,  Chinese  and  Malay.  It  is  quite  useless  for  Latin  to  try 
to  steal  a  march  while  the  long  line  is  waiting,  for  the  heart 
and  soul  of  English  are  very  democratic,  and,  when  competitors, 
Latin  counts  for  no  more  than  Choctaw.  It  is  the  English 
thought,  not  the  Latin  garb,  that  is  master  of  the  situation. 
The  test  is  service  to  a  living  tongue  of  the  twentieth  century, 
not  homage  or  shelter  of  the  wandering  manes  of  dead  vocab- 
ularies, or  unquiet  ghosts  of  languages  wearying  of  the  linguistic 
Hades  and  seeking  for  some  real  live  incarnation  among  the 
thoughts  of  man.  Latin,  like  every  other  tongue,  is  clay  in  the 
hands  of  the  English  potter.  And  he  has  more  than  one  wheel 
to  shape  it  upon.  Spelling,  pronunciation,  form,  meaning,  etc., 
all  these  turn  beneath  his  skillful  hand.  Who  would  recognize 
in  jilt  the  descendant  of  Juliana,  or  in  cah  the  offspring  of 
caper  ("he  goat")  ?  Why  if  Latin  be  so  indispensable  to  modern 
English,  has  it  (or  Greek)  not  furnished  substitutes  -for  words 
like   these:   Boycott,   tariff,  gong,   caucus,   taboo,   totem,  tattoo. 


LATIN   AND   GREEK  197 

cannibal,  Tammany,  bazaar,  boomerang,  hammock,  hurricane, 
curari,  guano,  shampoo,  cabal,  mammon,  etc.?  For  the  simple 
reason  that  the  Roman  and  the  Greek  mind  never  saw  or  felt  some 
of  these  things  as  we  see  and  feel  them,  and  our  language  is 
strong  enough  to  pick  and  choose  from  the  living,  not  borrow  per-  • 
force  from  the  dead  tongues  of  earth.  The  classicists  are  shocked 
at  the  ease  with  which  English  Sprachgefiihl  discovers  these 
words  and  at  the  difficulty  they  meet  in  getting  their  own  book- 
made  terms  adopted.  They  forget  that  English  has  no  grammar 
wherewith  to  shackle  any  word.  No  armor  to  protect  it,  no 
ornament  to  deck  it  out  with  save  thought  only.  To  English 
the  Latin  and  Greek  arsenal  of  gender,  case,  inflection,  conjuga- 
tion, etc.,  is  a  sort  of  Nuremburg  torture-chamber  representing 
the  Dark  Ages  of  language  when  pious  and  bigoted  literary 
inquisitioners  sought  to  convert  all  words,  all  languages,  into 
some  sort  of  orthodox  Latinity.  But  speech  no  less  than  faith, 
had  its  Luther.  What  a  wail  went  up  from  the  classicists,  who 
claimed  to  be  the  guardians  of  "pure  English,"  when  the  word 
sociology  was  coined  and  successfully  floated.  Their  loud 
protests  against  hybridism  in  compound  terms  only  emphasized 
the  fact  that  neither  of  their  boasted  model-languages  could 
alone  furnish  the  needed  expression,  so  English,  scorning  the 
grammarian's  limitations,  took  part  from  each  and  the  new 
word  appeared  to  designate  a  new  and  important  branch  of  the 
science  of  man.  The  heart  of  English  is  still  English.  John- 
sonese is  dead.  Macaulayesque  is  moribund  even  in  our  high 
schools  where  it  has  so  long  found  shelter.  Paragraphing  may 
occasionally  galvanize  the  ghost  and  make  it  walk  a  little,  but, 
save  where  the  English  manufactured  by  teachers  of  English 
and  written  by  men  of  science  whom  they  have  taught  still 
lags  superfluous  on  the  stage,  the  English  born  of  Latin  imita- 
tion is  on  the  way  to  decent  interment.  The  greatest  English 
of  any  century  was  written  by  one  who  knew  "small  Latin  and 
less  Greek,"  and  the  best  English  of  our  day  by  some  who 
knew  still  less  of  both.  If  the  teacher  wants  to  see  how  Eng- 
lish English  can  be,  let  him  look  at  this  little  poem  by  F.  W. 
Bourdillon : 

"The  night  has  a  thousand  eyes, 
And  the  day  but  one; 

Yet  the  light  of  the  bright  world  dies 
With  the   dying   sun. 


198  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

"The  mind  has  a  thousand  eyes, 

And  the  heart  but  one; 
Yet  the  Hght  of  a  whole  Hfe  dies 

When  love  is  done." 

Not  a  single  word  of  Latin  or  Greek  origin  does  this  poem 
contain,  and  yet  it  seems  to  be  pretty  good  English.  And  if 
the  teachers  would  read  the  English  Bible  more  and  the  Sun- 
day newspaper  less  they  would  discover  plenty  more  good 
English  in  which  the  Latin  and  Greek  words  are  few  and  far 
between.  The  teacher  needs  to  recognize  that  while  Latin  and 
Greek  may  add  to  the  dictionary  words  that  are  there  only  by 
the  mistaken  efforts  of  men  of  science,  who  bury  in  such 
cerements  the  knowledge  they  have  so  laboriously  acquired,  they 
are  but  the  "painted  show,"  the  real  drama  of  Hfe  goes  on  in 
English,— it  is  the  Saxon  heart  of  English  that  is  given  "life 
more  abundantly."  Latin  and  Greek  are  incidents  or  accidents, 
not  necessities,  of  our  mother-tongue. 

Full  Use  should  he  Made  of  the  Evolutionary  Aspect  of 
English.  No  language  in  the  world  illustrates  so  well  the  devel- 
opment of  human  speech  in  harmony  with  the  evolution  of  a 
great  individual  civilization.  It  has  more  than  a  thousand  years 
of  documented  history  from  King  Alfred  to  Goldwin  Smith, 
from  Caedmon  to  Kipling,  from  the  oldest  Saxon  to  the  newest 
American.  Here  we  have  the  whole  progress  of  a  language 
from  the  inflectional  wealth  of  the  Old  English  to  the  half  dozen 
or  more  endings  to  which  this  has  shrunk  in  the  speech  of 
today.  And  the  verb  has  gained  like  the  noun.  Modern  Eng- 
lish believes  in  the  preposition  and  the  small  particle  against 
the  long  ending  and  the  Latin  verb.  On  every  hand  it  has 
sought  correlation  with  the  world  of  thought,  not  with  the 
formland  of  the  school-men.  Language  and  literature  alike  are 
evolving  to  this  end.  Touched  by  Celt,  Roman,  Norman,  and 
Frenchman,  the  spoken  word  and  the  written  have  progressed 
along  paths  peculiarly  their  own,  and  the  giant  figure  of 
Shakespeare,  no  less  than  the  speech  of  his  people,  is  unique 
among  men.  With  the  Celt  and  the  Saxon,  English  has  sounded 
the  depths  of  inter-racial  conflict,  with  Englishman  and  Nor- 
man it  has  fought  the  battles  of  democracy  and  aristocracy, 
with  the  Tudors  is  has  felt  the  emancipation  of  religion;  later 
still    it   was   with   the   evolution    of   the   modern   parliamentary 


LATIN  AND  GREEK  igp 

system,  as  before  it  was  present  at  its  birth ;  and  in  the  wake 
of  New  World  discovery  it  has  builded  a  Greater  England 
over-sea,  and  circled  the  globe  with  its  commerce,  while  multi- 
tudes in  every  continent  and  sea  make  it  more  and  mor^  the 
living  language  of  mankind.  All  this  the  teacher  of  English 
should  know,  and  as  much  of  it  as  he  can,  he  ought  to  teach. 
EngHsh  as  an  object-lesson  in  human  evolution  is  better  than 
English  shackled  to  the  grammar  and  the  dictionary. 

The  Democracy  of  English  must  be  Recognised.  Hitherto 
English  has  been  taught  as  if  it  were  an  aristocracy  for  which 
youth  (always  so  democratic)  needed  to  be  prepared.  The  core 
of  a  language  is  common  to  its  men,  women,  and  children, — 
children  at  play,  women  at  work,  men  at  their  ordinary  tasks, 
these  are  the  makers  and  keepers  of  the  speech  that  lives. 
Women,  the  guardians  of  the  child,  were  the  first  shapers  and 
transmitters  of  language.  A  few  words  sufficed  the  hunter, 
cunningly  tracking  the  wild  beast  to  his  lair,  or  stealthily  seek- 
ing the  scalp  of  his  foe.  Woman,  over  the  cradle,  where  life, 
not  death,  was  inspiring  her,  caught  innumerable  sounds  from 
the  lips  of  infancy,  and  gave  them  place  in  the  mother-tongue, 
which  the  laconic  father  was  only  too  ready  to  accept.  Of  all 
things  it  ill  becomes  women-teachers  to  Latinize  English;  the 
Saxon  heart  of  it  is  theirs  by  an  inalienable  birth-right.  Since 
the  very  beginnings  of  our  language  the  mother  and  her  child 
have  been  together,  and  English  is  Saxon  still.  Take  out  of  Eng- 
lish but  a  single  series  of  words  (all  woman's  own  by  genial 
labor  in  the  past), — sow,  sew,  sweep,  spin,  weave,  grind,  wind, 
wash,  bake,  etc., — and  what  a  void  there  is !  And  how  many 
of  the  slang  terms  that  ultimately  find  lodgment  in  the  best 
dictionaries  were  coined  by  the  child  of  the  street!  The  teacher 
must  cease  to  look  upon  English  as  something  to  be  shaped  and 
regulated  for  an  aristocracy  of  men,  and  come  to  see  that  it  is 
the  tool  of  the  democracy  of  men,  women,  and  children,  whose 
title  to  its  use  is  far  sounder  than  the  decree  of  any  pedagogic 
college  of  heraldry. 

King  Grammar  must  be  Dethroned.  By  some  strange  acci- 
dent the  democracy  of  English  is  still  subject  to  a  king,  whose 
tottering  authority  the  great  body  of  teachers,  unable  to  break 
away  from  old  traditions,  chivalrously  uphold.  And  this  king 
i-s  no  Saxon  monarch,  but  a  tyrant  of  the  books  tracing  his 
dynasty   back   to    the    days   when    the    Latin    school-men    ruled 


200  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

supreme.  What  is  needed  is  a  good,  healthy  declaration  of 
independence  and  the  relegation  to  the  lumber-yard  of  the 
Latin  grammars  and  their  imitations.  The  teacher  must  see 
that  English  is  to  be  taught  as  English,  and  not  as  if  it  were  a 
Latin  dialect.  He  must  wake  up  to  the  real  meaning  of  the 
fact  that  only  by  a  supreme  effort  is  Latin  now  used  in  the  city 
of  Rome  itself,  while  a  score  of  cities  as  important  as  the  one  by 
Tiber's  side  have  sprung  up  in  all  parts  of  the  world  whose 
common  speech  is  the  once  despised  English.  England  once 
supplied  oysters  and  slaves  for  the  Roman  emperors,  now  she 
has  girdled  the  globe  with  a  tongue,  the  record  of  whose  thoughts 
and  dreams  requires  a  lexicon  nearly  fifty  times  as  large  as 
that  which  interprets  all  there  is  left  of  the  prose  and  verse  of 
her  would-be  Latin  masters.  It  is  to  this  larger  democracy  of 
the  future,  and  not  to  the  limited  aristocracy  of  the  past,  that 
the  teacher  should  swear  allegiance.  When,  at  the  Council  of 
Constance  in  1414,  the  Emperor  Sigismund  was  rebuked  by  the 
Cardinal  Placentius  for  using  a  neuter  noiin  as  feminine  he 
replied,  "I  am  King  of  the  Romans,  and  above  grammar." 
And  the  way  in  which  the  various  Romance  languages  have 
treated  the  neuter  nouns  they  borrowed  from  Latin  showed 
that  they  too  were  "above  grammar,"  and  indicates  what  they 
would  have  done  further  in  this  matter  had  not  the  school-men 
interfered.  Four  hundred  years  later  a  president  of  the  United 
States  (no  less  a  man  than  Jefferson)  went  on  record  in  these 
words  "Where  strictness  of  grammar  does  not  weaken  expres- 
sion it  should  be  attended  to.  But  where,  by  small  grammatical 
negligence  the  energy  of  an  idea  is  condensed,  or  a  word  stands 
for  a  sentence,  I  hold  grammatical  rigor  in  contempt."  But 
the  users  of  English  must  be  prepared  to  go  farther  than  the 
Emperor  and  the  President.  And  their  poets  point  the  way. 
Whitman  in  rude  and  Browning  in  more  artistic  fashion  are  the 
poets  of  democracy  whose  deliberate  violations  of  grammar 
ask  and  need  no  excuse.  The  school-men  may  cavil  and  murmur 
as  they  please,  but  these  prophets  represent  the  future  democracy 
foresworn  of  its  allegiance  to  king  grammar  and  speaking  free 
men's  thoughts  as  free  men  should.  With  such,  the  language 
shall  come  to  its  own,  and  thought,  not  form,  be  master  of 
its  destinies.  The  teacher  should  remember  that  while  poets 
are  akin  to  the  gods,  the  grammarian  is  least  among  the  sons 
of  men.     The  poet  thinks  the  thought  of  God  after  Him,  the 


LATIN   AND   GREEK  an 

grammarian  shackles  the  thought  of  man  with  fetters  he  has 
made  himself. 

Poetry  miist  not  he  Made  into  Prose.  Poetry  is  the  greatest 
possession  of  man.  All  language  was  once  poetry,  and  most 
of  it  would  be  now  if  it  were  not  for  the  petty  dissections  of  the 
modern  grammalogue.  In  spite  of  the  ancient  philosopher  who 
wanted  to  exclude  them  from  his  ideal  republic  the  poets  still 
live,  and  the  little  children  love  them  as  of  old.  Poetry  is  as 
eternal  as  childhood  itself.  It  will  never  die  out  as  long  as 
generation  after  generation  continues  to  produce  fathers  and 
mothers  and  the  never-ending  chain  of  children  links  past, 
present  and  future  into  one.  President  Eliot  would  teach  all, — 
religion,  morals,  civics, — by  poetry.  Men  of  science  like  Presi- 
dent Hall  are  of  like  opinion.  So,  too,  students  of  nature,  like 
Burroughs,  who  hold  that  poetry  itself  is  sufficient  without  the 
brand  of  the  teacher  upon  it.  They  are  right.  Give  the  chil- 
dren poetry  fresh  from  the  hands  of  genius  and  of  God.  Let 
there  be  no  tampering  with  it.  Hands  off  grammarian  and  re- 
toucher !  Of  all  criminals  the  worst  is  the  teacher  who  wants 
the  child-like  thoughts  of  genius  transmuted  into  his  own  adult 
commonplaceness.  Paraphrasing  is  a  sin  against  the  Holy  Ghost. 
It  has  done  more  than  any  other  single  thing  to  kill  the  instinct 
for  good  English.  Its  very  name  should  be  anathema.  We  have 
barrels  of  sermons,  bushels  of  orations,  and  books  innumerable 
treating  of  the  birth  of  American  liberty,  but  who  does  not 
turn  to  the  poet  for  the  best  word  of  all?  And  yet  a  teacher 
will  set  a  pupil  to  paraphrasing  this  holy  scripture,  for  such  it 
is.  Such  action  is  utter  sacrilege.  A  teacher  who  demands  this 
is  worse  than  any  savage  or  barbarian.  Emerson's  immortal 
hymn  ought  at  least  to  be  freed  from  the  Cossacks  of  the 
school.     Over  Shakespeare's  grave  we  read: 

"Good  Friend,   for  Jesus  sake  forbeare 
To  digg  the  dust  encloased  heare; 
Bleste  be  the  man  who  spares  thes  stones, 
And  curst  be  he  that  moves  my  bones." 

This  of  the  dead  body  of  the  poet.  What  words  shall  frame 
the  blessing  and  the  curse  for  those  who  have  to  do  with  the 
living  body  of  the  poet,  the  part  of  him  that  can  never  die? 

The  teacher  of  English  ought  above  all  to  know  good  English 


202  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

when  he  sees  it,  and  to  be  wise  enough  to  let  it  alone.  It  will 
sing  itself  into  the  hearts  of  the  young  without  his  organ  of 
adulteration. 


CLASSICAL  LITERATURE  THROUGH  ENGLISH 
TRANSLATIONS  1 

In  the  sixteenth  century  Melanchthon,  the  father  of  German 
humanistic  schools,  wrote  an  essay,  not  devoid  of  pathos,  entitled 
De  miser  Us  pedagogorum,  in  which  among  other  things  he  be- 
wails the  stupor  pedagogicus  which  descends  upon  the  unhappy 
pupils  through  their  "measureless  labor  and  weariness  in  learn- 
ing the  Latin  tongue."  He  laments  the  fate  of  the  German  as 
compared  with  the  Greek  who  needed  not  to  learn  a  strange 
tongue,  but,  as  soon  as  he  could  read  and  write,  went  straight- 
way to  the  study  of  science  and  philosophy.  About  a  hundred 
years -later,  the  bright  chief  of  English  humanists,  Milton  him- 
self, complains  that  "we  do  amiss  to  spend  seven  or  eight  years 
in  scraping  together  so  much  miserable  Latin  and  Greek  as 
might  be  learned  otherwise  easily  and  delightfully  in  one  year." 
"Language,"  he  further  declares,  "is  but  the  instrument  convey- 
ing to  us  things  useful  to  be  known."^  He  agreed  then  with 
Melanchthon's  opinion,  that  "Latin  and  Greek  are  not  culture, 
but  only  the  gate  thereto."  Unfortunately,  the  "easy  and  delight- 
ful" method  of  learning  Latin  in  one  year  has  never  been 
realized   in   practice,   at   least   for   ordinary   mortals. 

Since  those  days  the  status  of  culture  has  greatly  changed: 
the  vernacular  tongues  of  Germany,  England,  and  other 
European  countries,  which  then  were  despised  as  incompetent 
and  unfit  for  the  embodying  of  any  true  literature  or  science, 
have  risen  to  proud  eminence  in  all  branches  of  human  thought. 
Particularly  vital  to  our  present  theme  is  the  fact  that  all  the 
'greatest  classical  works,  for  the  sake  of  which  the  early  human- 
ists endured  the  "measureless  toil  of  learning  Latin,"  have  been 
rendered  by  master-hands  into  the  native  and  current  languages 
of  the  civilized  countries.  Yet  strange  to  say,  the  evils  of 
which  Melanchthon  and  Milton  complain  still  exist;  pupils  in 
our    schools    still    suffer     from    the     ravages    of    the    stupor 

*  Edward   O.    Sisson.     School   Review.     14:660-3.     November,    1906. 
2  Tractate  on  Education,  p.   118.     (Cassell,  London,   1904.) 


LATIN  AND  GREEK  203 

pedagogicus,  and  still  "through  long  continued  chase  after 
words,  lose  the  power  to  comprehend  thoughts."  As  in  Melanch- 
thon's  time,  so  in  ours,  the  study  of  the  Latin  and  Greek  lan- 
guages, which  should  be  the  doorway  of  admission  to  classic 
culture,  too  often  proves  instead  a  gate  to  bar  out.  This,  we 
maintain,  occurs  in  three  ways.  First  and  chiefest,  vast  quantities 
of  time  are  devoured  in  the  endeavor  to  master  the  languages, 
and  thus  the  literatures  are  almost  completely  neglected. 
Secondly,  the  mastery  of  the  language  is,  in  all  but  a  vanishing 
minority  of  cases,  so  far  from  perfect  that  the  pupil  gets  little 
insight  into  the  author's  meaning,  less  into  his  style,  and  none 
into  the  true  literary  charm .  and  beauty.  Finally,  the  stupor 
pedagogicus  becomes  too  often  an  odium  classicum — a  deep 
aversion  to  everything  savoring  of  the  languages  which  have 
formed  such  a  long  and  tedious  task. 

As  to  the  second  and  third  of  these  indictments,  I  have  little 
to  say;  they  are  old  enough,  and  have  been  often  and  vigorously 
urged,  and  as  vigorously  opposed;  I  can  only  add  a  personal 
testimony  which  is  the  outcome  of  many  years  of  teaching  the 
two  classical  languages  and  observing  the  results  of  the  teaching 
of  others.  As  to  the  matter  of  time  I  wish  to  say  a  few  words. 
Let  us  take  the  case  of  a  lad  who  studies  Latin  the  usual 
time  in  a  public  secondary  school,  daily  for  four  years;  this 
makes,  roughly,  150  weeks;  we  may  fairly  reckon  one  hour 
daily  for  work  outside  of  the  recitation.  In  the  natural  course 
of  his  Latin  work  he  would  "take,"  first,  a  year's  lessons  upon 
matter  of  no  real  literary  value;  then  Caesar's  Gallic  War  or 
material  of  somewhat  similar  quality  and  quantity;  then  from 
four  to  six  books  of  the  JEneid,  and  six  or  seven  Orations  of 
Cicero.     Upon  these  his  150. weeks  have  been  expended. 

What  might  he  have  done  with  translations?  The  following 
list  is  given  merely  as  a  suggestion  of  the  sort  of  diet  which  he 
might  enjoy,  without  the  least  idea  that  it  is  the  best  selection 
possible;  let  every  classical  scholar  find  abundant  fault  with 
the  selection,  and  so  add  strength  to  my  main  contention. 

Plutarch :     ten  selected  Lives  8  weeks 

Homer :      Odyssey    entire     8      " 

Iliad   entire    8 

Xenophon :  Anabasis  and  selections  from  the 

Hellenica  and  Cyropedia    10 

Plato :     Apology  and  Crito   5 


«    • 


204  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

Caesar :   Gallic  War,   Civil   War lo  weeks 

Three  or  four  Greek  plays  6      " 

Vergil:     Aeneid     entire;      selections      from 

Georgics  and  Bucolics    8      " 

Hesiod :    selections  from  Works  and  Days  . .       5      " 

Herodotus :     selections    5      " 

Cicero:      select    Orations    and    Letters,    De 

amicitia,   De   senectute    lo      " 

Seneca :    Morals  (selections)    4      " 

Tacitus :     Annals,   Germanica   (selections) . .       5      " 

Horace,    Juvenal,    Plautus     (selections) 10      " 

Marcus   Aurelius :    selections    5 

Epictetus :   selections 3 

Thucydides :    selections    5 

Aristotle:  Constitution  of  Athens,  and  selec- 
tions              5      " 

Pliny :   selections    5      " 

Minor  poets  and  dramatists   5      " 

Greek  and  Roman  literary  history,  art,  archi- 
tecture, mythology,  religion,  politics, 
private     life,     industry    and     commerce, 

social    systems    20      " 

The  above  plan  allows  amply  for  the  student  to  read  the 
works  named  in  his  hours  of  private  study,  and  for  the  teacher 
to  explain  and  discuss  them  in  the  recitation  hour,  and  when 
necessary  to  quiz  the  class  upon  what  they  have  read.  Let  it 
not  be  forgotten  that  the  time  which  suffices  for  this  noble 
survey  of  actual  classical  literature  is  merely  the  amount  com- 
monly given  to  Latin  alone ;  for  those  who  would  take  Greek 
also  one-half  of  two-fifths  as  much  more  might  be  added  to  the 
above  list,  and  the  time  given  from  the  latter  part  of  the 
secondary  course,  when  the  mind  is  matured  and  strengthened 
by  the  discipline  of  the  earlier  years. 

By  such  a  plan  might  the  high- school  student  gain  a  real  and 
living  acquaintance  with  the  master-works  of  the  ancient  world — 
the  very  thing  for  which  Melanchthon  and  Milton  labored;  in 
weighing  the  question  we  must  not  forget  that  the  great  majority 
of  high-school  pupils  never  enter  college;  indeed,  many  of 
them  do  not  complete  the  high-school  course.  When  they 
devote  themselves  to  the  study  of  the  Latin  language,  they 
simply  sacrifice  precious  years  to  the  acquisition  of  a  tool  for 


LATIN   AND   GREEK  205 

a  task  which  they  never  lay  hand  to;  the  tool,  poor  enough 
at  best,  quickly  rusts  away  to  nothingness.  Moreover,  of  those 
who  go  to  college  after  having  spent  four  years  on  Latin  in 
the  high  school,  many  do  not  elect  Latin,  but  thank  their  stars 
that  they  are  finally  done  with  it;  and,  alas!  some  who  do  take 
it,  upon  compulsion  perhaps,  find  other  doors  to  the  needed 
"credit"  in  Latin  than  their  supposed  mastery  of  the  language 
for  which  they  have  paid  so  dear ;  in  other  words,  those  English 
renderings  of  the  classics  which  might  have  been  virtuous 
companions  and  entertainers,  as  well  as  sources  of  wisdom  and 
culture,  become  the  student's  accomplices  in  an  academic  mis- 
demeanor. 

I  have  tried  here  merely  to  show  reasons  for  believing  that 
the  use  of  translations  of  the  classics  would  do  far  better  service 
to  classic  culture  than  the  present  plan  of  dragging  the  pupil 
through  the  thorny  wilderness  of  the  language.  I  do  not  mean 
to  imply  the  view  that  the  above  list,  or  any  similar  list  from 
the  Greek  and  Latin  literatures,  is  the  most  valuable  substitute 
for  the  years  of  language  study ;  many  other  branches  of  possible 
high-school  study  must  be  listened  to.  I  am  not  unaware  that 
I  am  silent  regarding  what  is  by  some  held  to  be  the  most 
cogent  argument  for  the  study  of  Latin  and  Greek — discipline. 
This  is  one  point  upon  which  I  am  quite  willing  to  think  with 
the  humanists  of  the  Renaissance,  and  with  the  Greeks,  who 
thought  it  waste  labor  to  repeat  childhood  in  learning  a  new 
tongue.  There  is  much  suggestion  in  the  words  of  Plutarch 
upon  his  own  experience  in  learning  Latin :  "It  was  not  so 
much  by  the  knowledge  of  words  that  I  came  to  the  under- 
standing of  things,  as  by  my  experience  of  things  I  was  enabled 
to  follow  the  meaning  of  words." 


WHY  I  HAVE  A  BAD  EDUCATION  ^ 

Although  prepared  for  college  by  a  well-known  classical 
school,  a  Bachelor  of  Arts  in  one  university  and  a  Doctor  of 
Philosophy  in  another,  my  education  is  far  from  satisfactory. 
The  reason  is  clear  enough ;  a  glance  backwards  reveals  the 
cause  in  the  stupid  and  irrational  insistence  upon  the  dead 
languages  to  which  so  many  are  subjected. 

1  Walter    P.    Hall.     Outlook.      106:848-52.     April    18,    1914. 


206  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

By  the  time  I,  a  trusting  and  docile  boy,  had  reached  the 
age  of  seventeen,  it  had  been  my  lot  to  study  the  Latin  language 
for  five  years  and  the  Greek  for  four.  Equipped  forthwith 
with  these  great  staples  of  the  human  mind  divine,  my  reasoning 
powers  strengthened  and  fortified  by  real  mental  pabulum,  as 
my  teachers  told  me,  but  in  reality  rendered  dull  and  osseous, 
'I  was  matriculated  at  college.  To  be  sure,  I  was  duly  certified 
in  the  knowledge  of  certain  other  studies;  of  geometrical  figures 
and  algebraic  formulas  I  must  have  known  something,  phantom- 
like ghosts  of  an  uneasy  past  though  they  now  appear.  Also 
two  years  of  German  and  a  little  English  Literature  had  been 
meted  out  to  me,  together  with  a  brief  sketch  of  Ancient 
History,  quite  ancillary,  as  it  were,  to  the  work  in  the  classics. 
The  college  entrance  examinations  in  my  case  were  twenty  in 
number,  and  twelve  of  the  twenty — if  Greek  and  Roman  history 
be  included — dwelt  exclusively  with  the  classics.  The  other 
eight  were  divided  between  English,  mathematics,  and  German. 
Nothing  else  was  demanded.  Of  every  branch  of  modern 
science  I  was  as  ignorant  as  an  aboriginal  Australian.  If  I 
knew  anything  at  all  of  mediaeval  or  modern  civilization,  it 
was  purely  fortuitous.  Geography  and  American  history  were 
studied  in  grammar  school,  but  in  a  primitive  and  amorphous 
fashion ;  the  wealth  of  knowledge  therein  attained  ranging  from 
an  enumeration  of  the  capitals  of  Europe  to  a  recital  of  the 
various  battles  of  the  Mexican  War.  Nowhere  had  there  been 
a  whisper  of  the  workings  of  the  American  Government  or 
of  present-day  social  conditions  in  our  country. 

The  quid  pro  quo  which'  was  mine  in  return  for  this  lore  of 
the  ancients  was  meager  in  character.  Certainly,  as  the  result 
of  the  application  of  so  many  years,  an  appreciation  if  not  a 
love  for  the  recognized  masterpieces  of  classical  literature  might 
at  least  be  expected ;.  yet  of  the  former  I  have  but  little  and  of 
the  latter  none.  Neither  Virgil  nor  Horace  is  dear  to  me,  and 
aside  from  these  two  poets  five  hundred  pages  contain  all  the 
classical  Latin  worthy  of  intensive  study.  Surely  it  is  inexplic- 
able that  the  precious  time  of  the  school-boy  should  be  given  over 
to  the  stupid  military  operations  of  Julius  Caesar  or  to  the 
rhetorical  vanities  of  Cicero.  Greek  literature,  at  least  original, 
is  expressive  and  beautiful,  and  as  a  youngster  I  well  enjoyed 
my  Iliad;   but  I   do  not   read   it  now,  and  it  is   doubtful   if   I 


LATIN   AND   GREEK  207 

could.  Herodotus  and  Thucydides  are  to  be  had  in  translation, 
and  for  Plato  there  is  Jowett. 

Never  before  have  I  made  so  complete  a  confession.  Not 
only  have  I  deceived  others  in  this  matter  for  years,  but  I  have 
deluded  myself  as  well.  Some  leisure  day,  I  said,  I  will  turn 
once  more  to  the  classics  for  their  wealth  of  golden  thought  and 
philosophy  staid  and  mellow.  And  the  picture  of  this  coming 
treat,  a  constant  atonement  for  contemporaneous  neglect,  took 
its  place  among  those  beautiful  foreshadowings  of  delights 
which  the  future  is  to  bring.  To  enjoy  the  classics  in  modera- 
tion seemed  the  thing  to  do.  It  is  always  done  in  books,  and 
is  said  to  exist  in  real  life.  One  wonders  if  it  does.  On 
scrutiny,  my  entire  acquaintanceship  fails  to  reveal  an  individual, 
not  directly  engaged  in  the  teaching  of  the  classics,  whom  I 
have  ever  known  to  read  either  Latin  or  Greek  for  pure  pleasure. 
Many  speak  with  feeling  of  the  art  superb  of  the  writers  of 
antiquity.  Most  of  us  have  done  so;  but  where  are  they  who 
read  them?  A  clergyman  may,  for  conscience'  sake,  occasionally 
scan  his  Greek  Testament,  and  other  folk  perhaps  for  motives 
similar  pick  up  their  dusty  Virgils;  but  do  any  do  so  joyously? 
There  may  be  such,  but  I  know  of  none.  Is  it  not,  then,  ques- 
tionable to  cram  these  distasteful  doses  down  the  protesting 
throats  of  our  restive  children?  Yet  we  do  so  with  gusto,  and 
talk  with  wise  unction  of  the  value  of  the  unpalatable.  Two 
years'  teaching  experience  in  one  of  the  better  known  of  our 
minor  colleges  has  brought  me  in  close  contact  with  a  faculty 
of  intelligence  and  culture,  a  faculty  which  nevertheless  voted 
all  but  unanimously  to  restore  to  sophomore  year  the  compulsory 
study  of  an  ancient  language.  Did  my  friends  on  that  faculty 
read  Latin  or  Greek?  They  may  have  in  the  small  hours  of 
the  night  or  behind  closed  doors ;  but  if  they  did,  I  knew  it  not ; 
and,  what  is  more,  I  suspect  that  many  knew  as  little  of  the 
classics  as  I,  and  some  perhaps  less.  One  even  wonders  whether 
they  of  Oxford  and  Cambridge  are  not  equally  self-deceptive 
in  this  matter;  and  though  one  speaks  with  diffidence  on  educa- 
tion in  England,  surely  there  is  no  evidence  of  any  incontinent 
love  for  the  ode  Pindaric  or  the  Latin  Fathers  among  those 
graduates  of  her  universities  whom  it  has  been  my  pleasure  to 
meet. 

The   assumption   is   frequently   made   that   from   the   classics 


208  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

may  be  extracted  the  mental  training  sans  pareil.  Of  this  there 
exists  not  one  iota  of  proof.  The  study  of  Latin  affords  as 
good  mental  discipline  as  the  study  of  biology,  history,  or  any 
other  well-synthesized  subject,  but  discipline  neither  better  nor 
worse.  There  is  no  psychological  evidence  extant  that  differen- 
tiates between  Latin  and  German  in  so  far  as  mental  processes 
are  affected,  yet  it  is  stoutly  affirmed  that  the  plastic  intelligence 
of  youth  has  but  to  be  touched  by  the  magic  wand  of  Latin, 
andj  presto !  he  thinketh.  Why  should  this  miracle  be  so 
devoutly  believed  when  no  reason  worthy  the  name  is  advanced 
for  its  substantiation?  Nevertheless  this  mysterious  and 
romantic  operation  is  a  recognized  axiom  of  the  creed  pedagog- 
ical, and  only  yesterday  a  teacher  of  physics  assured  me  that, 
inasmuch  as  Latin  construction  was  harder  than  German,  the 
study  of  the  former  language  developed  a  keener  analytic  ability 
in  him  who  would  decipher  its  occult  meaning.  What  an 
argument  is  this !  In  all  conscience,  if  difficulty  in  analysis  is 
the  desired  end  of  education,  let  us  introduce  into  our  class- 
rooms the  mental  gymnastics  of  Duns  Scotus  and  the  mediaeval 
schoolmen.  There  is  no  exercise  that  involves  more  patient 
scrutiny  and  closer  exegesis. 

The  benefits  that  a  classical  education  confer  may  be  com- 
pactly stated  in  one  paragraph.  First,  they  undoubtedly  afford 
a  good  foundation  for  the  Romance  languages.  This,  however, 
is  easily  exaggerated;  and,  furthermore,  the  more  profound 
the  study  of  Latin,  the  less  likely  the  pursuit  of  more  than  one 
Romance  language,  and,  moreover,  that  one  is  all  to  frequently 
neglected.  To  study  Latin  seven  years  and  French  one,  as 
was  my  own  experience,  is  not  particularly  conducive  to  a 
knowledge  of  French.  Second,  the  derivation  of  a  majority  of 
our  English  words  may  be  traced  to  Latin  or  Greek,  and  it  is 
unquestionable  that  by  their  study  the  meaning  of,  at  any  rate, 
the  more  unusual  English  words  may  be  more  readily  appreciated. 
Here  again  there  is  danger  of  overstatement.  If  the  classics 
are  good,  the  dictionary  is  better.  A  man  classically  trained  can 
define  approximately  the  word  "exiguous,"  but  to  become 
acquainted  with  its  finer  subtleties  and  literary  use  an  appeal 
to  Murray  is  still  desirable. 

Finally,  in  behalf  of  the  classics  the  argument  may  in  justice 
be  made  that  not  only  do  they  introduce  us  to  a  great  and 
flourishing  civilization,  but  that  also  by  their  study  the  classical 


LATIN    AND   GREEK  209 

allusions  in  English  literature  are  made  clear.  This  argument 
is  readily  answered.  If  the  time  spent  in  the  study  of  Latin 
.composition  alone  was  given  to  the  classics  in  translations,  it 
would  provide  a  more  thorough  basis  for  the  recognition  of 
mythological  allusions,  and  a  better  appreciation  of  the  civiliza- 
tion of  the  ancient  world. 

The  weary  hours  spent  in  the  pursuit  of  the  dead  languages 
are  not  so  much  to  be  regretted  as  the  loss,  perhaps  irreparable, 
of  more  catholic  and  useful  knowledge.  From  a  large  part  of 
that  glorious  literary,  historical,  and  philosophical  Renaissance 
of  the  twentieth  century,  Latin  and  Greek  have  all  but  debarred 
me.  To  read  Hauptmann,  Maeterlinck,  Eucken,  and  Anatole 
France,  one  needs  more  than  a  reading  knowledge  of  French 
and  German;  one  needs  a  feeling  knowledge  as  well,  an  ability 
to  think,  aye,  and  to  dream,  in  the  two  great  languages  of  the 
Continent.  I  cannot  do  that,  and  perhaps  may  never  do  it,  and 
well  I  know  the  futility  of  picking  my  way  through  a  living 
tongue  even  as  a  child  deciphers  his  first  story  books.  What 
consolation  is  it  to  read  the  Pauline  Epistles  in  the  original 
Greek,  or  the  little,  unauthoritative  pamphlet  by  Tacitus  on  the 
habits   of  the  early  Germans? 

Hardly,  indeed,  could  we  find  an  assumption  more  absurd 
than  to  expect  the  undergraduate  to  familiarize  himself  with 
four  foreign  languages,  two  living  and  two  dead.  It  may  be 
done.  The  college  may  turn  out  a  linguistic  automaton,  with 
mind  blank  to  chemistry,  history,  economics,  and  psychology; 
but  the  result  is  too  dreadful  to  contemplate.  As  it  is,  the 
scientific  training  of  most  of  us  poor  bachelors  of  art  is  desultory 
and  picayune.  The  only  science  that  I  was  taught  was  a  little 
biology  and  geology;  but  slender  as  is  the  knowledge,  I  cling 
to  it  with  great  affection.  The  broadening  effect  of  even  one 
science  is  incalculable.  When  I  compare  the  glorious  vistas  that 
historic  geology  laid  open  before  my  very  soul  with  Plato's  story 
of  the  death  of  Socrates — and  there  is  nothing  finer  in  Greek 
literature — I  stand  unhesitatingly  by  the  geology.  A  trilobite 
is  preferable  to  a  second  aorist.  He,  at  any  rate,  is  animate. 
And  to  think  that  had  it  not  been  for  the  pornographic  plays  of 
Terence,  some  knowledge  of  astronomy  or  botany  might  have 
Deen  mine! 

The  indictment  of  Latin  or  Greek  does  not  culminate  with 
the  neglect  of  modern  languages  or  of  science.     The  implanting 


210.  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

of  culture  even  in  its  narrowest  and  most  intensive  meaning,  as 
defined  in  the  ancient  belief  that  "the  glory,  of  the  classics  is 
that  they  teach  nothing  useful,"  is  sadly  impaired  by  the  stress  . 
laid  upon  the  dead  languages.  I  refer  to  the  field  of  aesthetics. 
Nothing,  probably,  could  ever  have  taught  me  to  carry  a  time, 
but  there  is  no  reason  why  certain  rudiments  of  music  should 
not  have  been  given  me.  I  have  always  had  a  curiosity  to 
know  what  counterpoint  is.  Sculpture,  one  suspects,  is  confined 
generally  to  young  ladies'  seminaries.  Architecture  may  perhaps 
receive  one  day's  attention  in  a  general  history  of  western 
Europe.  Painting  does  well  to  meet  with  equal  emphasis,  and 
landscape  gardening  certainly  is  unknown.  Why  should  there 
be  no  general  course  in  aesthetics?  Why  should  our  boys  and 
girls  be  uninstructed  in  the  art  of  Rodin,  or  less  familiar  with 
the  Rheims  cathedral  than  with  the  Parthenon?  Is  the  mental 
discipline  of  the  classics  a  sufficient  answer? 

A  charge  far  graver  is  the  inexcusable  neglect  of  contempo- 
raneous social  knowledge  and  science  which  the  classics  foster. 
Are  not  the  mind-widening  influences  of  the  opening  of  South 
America  and  the  unlocking  of  Asia  more  significant  to  us  than 
the  adventures  of  Dido  and  ^neas?  Can  any  problems  be  so 
important  as  those  of  our  own  generation  ?  By  every  code  of 
ethics,  Christian  or  otherwise,  man  serves  his  fellow-man,  and 
to  do  that  he  must  understand  with  a  sympathetic  wisdom  the 
circumstances  of  his  daily  life.  •  To  right  existent  wrong ;  to 
straighten  up,  clean  out  and  make  over,  the  crooked,  muddled, 
and  diseased  plague-centers  of  society,  one  must  know  what 
they  are,  where  they  are,  and  how  they  came  into  being. 
Without  such  knowledge  true  leadership  is  impossible,  and  to 
demand  leadership  in  an  educated  class  without  these  qualifica- 
tions is  fatuous.  The  makers  of  a  future  America  will  know 
what  is  wrong  and  how  to  better  it.  If  they  do  not  come  from 
the  college  they  will  come  from  elsewhere,  and  the  college 
graduate  will  be  relegated  to  the  garret— a  garret  where  the 
regalia  of  the  Merovingian  kings  and  even  their  influence  will 
be  entirely  lacking.  This  article  makes  no  pretense  to  postulate 
in  full  those  categories  of  present-day  information  that  should 
be  the  minimum  equipment  of  the  college  graduate.  It  is,  how- 
ever, of  prime  importance  for  him  to  know  the  general  conditions 
under  which  the  work  of  the  world  is  done;  the  hours  and  the 
remuneration  of  labor;  the  dangers  of  the  various  trades  and 


LATIN   AND   GREEK  211 

the  methods  of  preventing  them;  the  protection,  or  the  lack  of 
it,  afforded  to  the  child  and  the  woman;  the  treatment  by 
society  of  the  criminal,  the  pauper,  the  tramp,  the  emigrant,  and 
the  idle  man  of  property.  An  intimate  understanding  of  our 
own  country  there  must  be,  while  the  phenomenal  advance  made 
by  western  Europe  within  our  own  generation  may  not  be 
overlooked.  Whether  we  taste  of  the  fruit  of  the  tree  of  good 
and  evil  or  not,  we  must  be  aware  of  its  existence.  There  can 
be  no  escape  from  the  Egypt  of  economic  bondage  and  moral 
iniquity  into  the  land  of  Canaan,  the  blest,  without  knowing 
Egypt.  For  a  boy  or  a  girl  to  graduate  from  college  entirely 
unfamiliar  with  the  tide  of  European  democracy  onsurging 
throughout  the  last  thirty  years  is  unpardonable.  But  for  a 
boy  or  girl  to  graduate  from  college  in  total  ignorance  of  the 
intolerable  conditions  under  which  some  men  and  women  earn 
their  living  in  this  country  of  ours,  and  of  the  disguised  child 
slavery  before  our  eyes,  is  a  disgrace. 

The  plea  for  a  classic  basis  of  education  is  but  the  expression 
of  a  spirit  among  certain  educators  that  is  unfair  and  injurious 
to  the  sensitive  intelligence  over  which  they  have  unfortunate 
authority.  Mr.  H.  G.  Wells  in  his  brilliant  little  essay  "The 
Discovery  of  the  Future"  has  distinguished  between  "the  legal 
or  submissive  type  of  mind,"  with  its  sacrosanct  veneration  for 
"treaties,  constitutions,  legitimacies,  and  charters,"  and  the 
"legislative,  creative,  organizing,  or  masterful  type  which  is 
perpetually  attacking  and  altering  the  established  order  of 
things";  the  mind  "that  sees  the  world  as  one  great  workshop, 
and  the  present  as  no  more  than  material  for  the  future  .  .  . 
for  the  thing  that  is  yet  destined  to  be."  If  this  generalization 
is  just,  and  I  think  that,  taken  broadly,  none  can  dispute  it,  it  is 
a  piteous  fact  that  the  former  type  of  mind  should  so  generally 
prevail  among  the  teachers  of  our  youth.  Assuredly  it  is  an 
axiomatic  truth  that  the  index  of  human  progress  is  found  in 
the  advance  of  one  generation  over  another,  in  the  development 
of  finer  men  and  women.  It  is  in  the  future  only  that  our 
hopes  lie;  why,  then,  deliberately  blindfold  young  eyes  to  the 
coming  years  and  to  the  immediate  present,  the  womb  of  the 
future,  immerse  their  souls  in  the  aspirations  of  the  dead,  and 
gloss  over  with  the  muddy  varnish  of  worn-out  "idealogies"  the 
atrocities  of  modern  life  and  the  courageous  nobility  of  those 
who  combat  them? 


212  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

It  is  to  be  regretted  that  at  the  present  there  is  something  of 
a  lull  in  the  fight  for  educational  reform.  The  hard-pressed 
conservative,  driven  out  of  his  Greek/  has  intrenched  himself 
with  his  Latin  in  the  snuggest  of  earthworks,  while  the  radical, 
content  with  partial  victory,  has  abated  the  attack.  Eternal 
effort,  however,  there  must  be,  for,  by  the  laws  of  all  things, 
failure  to  advance  spells  retrogression,  and  of  late  the  apologists 
of  the  old  order,  emboldened  by  the  preliminary  lack  of  synthesis 
and  discipline — an  unfortunate  accompaniment  of  the  elective 
system — have  displayed  renewed  activity.  The  distinguished 
scholar,  Mr.  Gilbert  Murray,  has  recently  told  us  how  fond  the 
British  workman  has  become  of  Greek.  A  pamphlet  supposedly 
representing  an  entire  college  class  has  been  widely  and  semi- 
officially circulated  within  the  last  few  years,  advocating  in  all 
seriousness  certain  fallacious  and  mischievous  aphorisms  of 
Edmund  Burke,  the  scholastic  shoddiness  of  which  reason  and 
experience  have  long  since  laid  bare.  Furthermore,  in  our 
great  preparatory  schools,  rapidly  growing  in  size  and  social 
prestige,  there  has  been  a  constant  tendency  to  imitate  those 
methods  of  English  education  which  in  modern  Britain  have 
borne  such  deleterious  fruitage,  and  in  this  country  ere  long 
will  cause  it  to  be  said  that  the  value  of  a  young  American's 
training  varies  in  inverse  ratio  to  the  fashionableness  of  his 
education. 

The  comment  of  the  future  historian  on  our  educational 
system  existent  at  the  beginning  of  the  twentieth  century  would 
be  grim  reading  to  us  of  the  present.  It  is  true  that  here  and 
there  the  light  of  a  happier  day  is  breaking.  Amherst  College, 
has  had  the  temerity  to  announce  for  the  next  academic  year  a 
course  in  social  and  economic  institutions  for  freshmen.  In 
the  new  Columbia  School  of  Journalism  throughout  a  four 
years'  course  no  Latin  or  Greek  is  required  or  expected,  and 
it  is  thought  that  the  graduates  will  write  good  English.  A 
glance    at   the   historical   laboratory    of    Columbia    College    will 

*  A  contrary  view,  published  since  this  article  was  written,  by  Dean 
West,  of  the  Princeton  Graduate  College,  appears  in  the  "Educational 
Review"  for  March,  19 14.  Statistics  are  marshaled  by  Professor  West 
to  demonstrate  the  utility  of  Greek  by  proving  that  those  students  who 
have  studied  it  average  better  in  their  general  work  than  those  who  have 
not.  Might  it  not  be  fair  to  question  this  assumption  by  offering  two 
other  explanations:  one,  that  the  boys  who  have  studied  Greek  come 
from  families  in  which  an  academic  tradition  and  environment  tend  to 
produce  a  better  type  of  scholarship;  the  other,  that  there  is  a  constant 
tendency  in  the  preparation  schools  to  press  upon  the  brighter  students 
the   desirability   of   a  training  in   Greek? 


LATIN   AND   GREEK  213 

show,  almost  any  day,  eager  and  enthusiastic  students  working 
overtime  on  the  fiUng  of  contemporaneous  European  news- 
papers, demonstrating  once  and  for  all  the  falsity  of  the  asser- 
tion current  with  certain  educators  that  the  study  of  the  present 
is  "spineless  pap,"  without  discipline  or  consistency.  These 
"barber  sugeons  of  the  mind,"  who  make  no  distinction,  in  their 
muddled  intellectual  processes,  between  labor  as  such  and  disci- 
plined, rational  effort,  must  be  driven  from  their  fastnesses,  or 
else  forced  to  realize  that  labor  without  reason  or  utility  is 
degrading  to  all  that  is  fine  in  the  spirit  of  man.  We  no  longer 
have  the  treadmill  in  our  prisons;  some  day  there  will  be 
nothing  that  resembles  it  in  our  schools.  We  have  struck  our 
camp  and  have  begun  the  march;  but  the  fight  for  a  thorough- 
going reformation  has  but  just  begun.  As  the  situation  is  at 
present,  the  study  of  our  own  day,  vitally  essential  to  good 
citizenship,  is  entirely  omitted  from  most  preparatory  schools, 
and  is  Httle  more  than  a  junior  or  senior  elective  in  those 
colleges  that  pay  to  it  any  attention;  whereas  the  study  of  the 
remote  past,  the  true  logical  elective,  is,  in  our  Eastern  colleges, 
almost  everywhere  compulsory.  Until  this  condition  of  affairs 
is  substantially  reversed  the  radical  reformer  will  never  stand 
content. 


EXAMPLES  OF  DEAD  LANGUAGE 
PROPAGANDA^ 

Shall  We  Return  to  Greek  f^ 

Some  few  years  ago,  after  centuries  of  the  study  of  Greek, 
this  language  was  dropped  from  the  course  in  English  schools. 
Since  the  close  of  the  war,  however,  it  was  decided  by  the  Eng- 
lish ministry  that  this  study  which  had  done  its  work  so  efficiently 
in  educating  the  orators,  empire  builders,  statesmen  and  literary 
men  of  England,  was  too  valuable  to  be  dropped  and  if  has  ac- 
cordingly been  reinstated. 

Thus  it  is  that  the  field  of  education  has  been  the  scene  of 
countless  experiments.  Particularly  during  the  last  twenty-five 
years,  there  has  been  a  succession  of  new  studies  introduced  into 

*  This  and  the  following  article  appeared  unsigned  in  the  December  20, 
1920,  number  of  West  High  issued  bi-weekly  by  the  students  of  the  West 
High  School,  Cleveland,  Ohio. 


214  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

the  curricula  of  the  high  schools  of  our  country.  The  position 
has  constantly  been  taken  that  the  pubUc  purse  should  be  used 
to  provide  the  means  whereby  those  studies  could  be  pursued 
which  are  supposed  to  be  best  fitted  for  educating  the  pupil  to  do 
some  work  which  would  enable  him  to  make  his  living  in  the 
world. 

With  this  thought  in  view  equipments  have  been  provided  on 
such  an  elaborate  scale  that  the  cost  of  educating  its  youth  has 
become  an  exceedingly  expensive  work  for  the  state.  Thus  the 
educational  work  of  the  present  is  in  strange  contrast  with  the 
simplicity  of  the  past  when  a  far  less  number  of  studies  was 
pursued. 

Teachers  and  public  education  officials  are  constantly  made 
aware  of  the  great  diversity  of  talents  represented  in  the  stu- 
dent body  of  our  high  schools.  Here  there  is  great  danger  of 
spoiling  a  first  class  professional  man  by  making  a  second  class 
mechanic  and  vice  versa.  Opportunity  should  be  provided  for  all. 
Among  all  the  various  types  presented  in  a  select  body  of  youths 
is  that  minority  class  which  is  destined  to  become  influential 
members  of  society,  to  dominate  the  professions,  to  do  much  of 
its  writing,  speaking  and  thinking,  and  from  its  sanity  of  judg- 
ment and  discriminating  powers,  is  sure  to  Ibecome  the  safe 
leader  in  the  political  affairs  of  the  state.  The  education  of  this 
class  is  of  the  very  highest  practical  importance,  if  we  do  not 
wish  our  artisans  and  working  people  to  become  the  prey  of  ^ed- 
leadership." 

To  this  splendid  minority  class  the  study  of  Greek,  with  its 
matchless  iftasterpieces,  provides  most  admirable  training.  We 
must  not  neglect  this  type  of  young  men  and  women  in  any  wise 
course  of  study. 

If  we  could  constantly  have  two  or  three  classes  at  West  High 
which  would  be  students  of  this  language,  its  art,  its  beauty  and 
refinement,  we  should  find  that  nothing  would  do  so  much  to 
foster  earnest  effort,  to  raise  our  standards,  to  aid  in  seeking  for 
the  things  that  are  really  worth  while,  and  to  give  tone  and  eleva- 
tion to  our  whole  course. 

Shall  we  not  then  lend  our  efforts  to  foster  this  enterprise 
among  our  other  excellent  activities  and  start  our  next  semester 
with  a  splendid  class  in  Greek  that  shall  contain  what  such  classes 
always  have  in  the  past  the  real  "salt  of  the  earth  ?" 


LATIN   AND   GREEK  215 

Eruptions  from  Room  i 

"To  him  that  hath  shall  be  given."  Thus  sayeth  Mr.  Blank. 
This  fact  was  demonstrated  to  us  in  the  auditorium  Monday 
morning,  December  13th.  We  have  often  heard  from  the  afore 
mentioned  teacher,  that  one  can  get  "nowhere"  (i.  e.  reach  the 
gates  of  Heaven)  if  one  does  not  study  Latin. 

Gertrude  R.  a  member  of  the  Senior  Virgil  class,  gave  an 
oration  on  the  benefits  of  Latin  and  Evelyn  B.  recited  a  poem. 
Violet  A.  gave  123  rd  psalm  in  Latin.  A  dialogue  entitled  "Hescio 
Quid  in  Oculum  Incidit"  was  glibly  recited  by  Floyd  H.  and 
Harold  B. 

Richard  N.  stirred  his  audience  a  second  time  by  delivering 
Anthony's  funeral  address  over  the  bier  of  Caesar.  The  follow- 
ing girls,  Laura  W.,  Emilie  D.,  Grace  R.,  Vivienne  R.,  Sarah  M., 
Sarah  R.,  and  Isabelle  B.,  sang  a  Latin  song,  "Three  Boys  At 
Play."    Vivienne  R.  sang  a  Latin  Lullaby. 

The  final  number  on  the  program  was  a  one  act  play  "The 
Exetus  Helvetiorium"  presented  by  the  Freshmen  Latin  Class. 

Classical  Languages  * 

The  study  of  classical  languages  is  not  to  be  dispensed  with 
if  one  wishes  a  complete  education.  We  cannot  hope  to  attain 
a  high  standard  of  scholarship  if  we  are  to  be  disconnected  from 
the  extraordinary  benefit  derived  from  the  works  of  ancient 
writers.  To  be  familiar  with  Greek  and  Latin  is  an  admittance 
to  the  highest  ranks  of  culture. 

The  fundamental  qualities  of  modern  literature  are  practically 
identical  with  those  of  Greek  and  Roman  productions.  Therefore 
is  it  not  necessary  to  acquire  a  knowledge  of  ancient  languages  to 
become  a  proficient  student  of  English? 

Possibly  you  may  call  them  "dead"  languages;  but  do  you 
realize  that  being  able  to  translate  them  carries  an  intellectual 
advancement  from  generation  to  generation? 

Probably  it  may  add  an  hour  or  so  to  your  accustomed  time 
of  mental  occupation.  However,  the  time  consumed  would  be 
most  advantageous,  if  you  aspire  to  be  anything  other  than  an 
office  clerk  or  manual  laborer. 

1  From  the  Blue  and  Gold,  published  weekly  by  the  students  at  the 
East  High  School,  Cleveland,  O.  This  was  written  by  a  second  year 
student    and   appeared   under   his   name    on    November    16,    19 16. 


BRIEF  EXCERPTS 

Latin  and  Greek  do  not  teach  us  how  to  write  our  own 
language.  Cloudesley  Brereton,  Nineteenth  Century  83:821 
Ap,  '18. 

The  learning  of  a  language  has  a  value  according  to  the 
use  that  we  are  to  make  of  it.  Alexander  Bain,  Education  as 
a  Science,  p.  167. 

The  study  of  the  classical  languages  forms  a  positive  bar 
to  real  acquaintance  with  classical  literature.  Prof,  Edward 
O.  Sisson,  School  Review  15 :5o8  Sept.  '07. 

Throughout  his  after-career  a  boy,  in  nine  cases  out  of  ten, 
applies  his  Latin  and  Greek  to  no  practical  purposes.  Herbert 
Spencer,  Education:  Intellectual,  Moral,  and  Physical,  p.  7. 

Studying  to  think  in  a  dead  language  is  shackling  the  mind, 
instead  of  liberating  it,  and  must  lead  not  to  a  free  but  to  an 
arrested  development.  Paul  R.  Shipman,  Popular  Science 
Monthly   17:148,  June  1880. 

Multitudes  in  both  of  these  professions  (law  and  medicine) 
rise  to  eminence  without  eithe;  Latin  or  Greek,  to  say  nothing 
at  all  of  the  whole  college  course.  Rev  Dr.  B.  H.  Nadal, 
Methodist  Quarterly  49:227,  April  1867. 

During  the  time  expended  on  the  classical  course,  a  man 
of  average  ability  could  acquire  a  speaking  and  reading  famil- 
iarity with  certainly  two  of  the  Romance  languages.  John  J. 
Stevenson,  School  and  Society   10:164,  Aug.  9,    1919. 

The  cultivation  of  the  Latin  and  Greek  languages  is  a  great 
obstacle  to  the  cultivation  and  perfection  of  the  English  lan- 
guage. Dr.  Benjamin  Rush,  Essays:  Literary,  Moral  and 
Philosophical,  p.  25. 


LATIN  AND  GREEK  217 

It  is  psychologically  impossible  to  pass  through  the  appren- 
ticeship stage  of  learning  foreign  languages  at  the  age  when 
the  vernacular  is  setting  without  crippling  it.  Ransom  A.  Mackie, 
Education  during  Adolescence,  p.  99. 

To  many  boys  the  path  to  literary  appreciation  cannot 
lie  through  Latin  or  even  Greek,  because  the  old  language  hangs 
like  a  veil  between  them  and  the  thought  within.  Arthur  C. 
Benson,  From  a  College  Window    p.  163. 

As  to  the  matter  of  the  discipline  to  be  got  out  of  Greek, 
we  think  that  is  largely  nonsense.  Discipline  comes  equally  in 
hard  study  whether  Greek  or  German  or  Chemistry.  The 
Independent    (editorial)    35:1009,  Aug.  9,    1883. 

The  principal  defect  in  the  present  system  of  our  great 
schools  is  that  they  devote  too  large  a  portion  of  time  to  Latin 
and  Greek.  R.  L.  Edgeworth,  Essays  on  Professional  Educa- 
tion.  (London,  1812)   p.  49. 

The  boasted  discipline  of  classical  education .  for  the  atten- 
tion and  reasoning  powers  may  be  quite  as  well  obtained  from 
studies  which  touch  more  closely  the  practical  life  of  the  great 
mass  of  the  population.  Nicholas  Murray  Butler,  The  Mean- 
ing of  Education  p.  174. 

I  may  avow  as  a  result  of  my  reading  and  observation  in 
the  matter  of  education,  that  I  recognize  but  one  mental  acquisi- 
tion as  an  essential  part  of  the  education  of  a  lady  or  a  gentle- 
man,— namely,  an  accurate  and  refined  use  of  the  mother-tongue. 
Charles  W.  Eliot,  Popular  Science  Monthly  17:145,  June  1880. 

For  all  those  who  mean  to  make  science  their  serious  occu- 
pation; or  who  intend  to  follow  the  profession  of  medicine;  or 
who  have  to  enter  early  upon  the  business  of  life;  for  all  these, 
in  my  opinion,  classical  education  is  a  mistake.  Thomas  H. 
Huxley,  Science  and  Education    p.   153. 

We  have  no  classical  Latin  that  is  suitable  for  boys.  This 
is  a  strong  objection  to  giving  it  a  place  in  the  lower  schools. 
Almost  all  the  Latin  read  in  both  school  and  college  deals  with 


2i8  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

war    and    politics.      Besides,    it    is    too    difficult    for    beginners. 
Charles  W.  Super,  Popular  Science  Monthly  77:565,  Dec.  1910. 

The  methods  and  content  o£  Latin  instruction  in  most 
American  liberal  colleges  are  destined  soon  to  undergo  radical 
changes  if  that  instruction  is  to  make  in  future  valid  claims  to 
the  attention  of  any  considerable  number  of  undergraduates. 
Prof.  Henry  W.  Litchfield,  Classical  Journal  14:6,  Oct.   1918. 

Greek  and  Latin  have  little  value  on  the  information  side, 
except  in  special  studies,  inasmuch  as  the  information  which 
they  contain  can  be  acquired  much  more  easily  and  thoroughly 
through  translations.  John  F.  Brown,  The  American  High 
School,  p.  ictS. 

Even  in  the  most  modern  public  schools  the  classical  teachers 
are  picking  over  the  boys,  and  any  boy  who  can  possibly  be  saved 
from  the  Modern  side  and  kept  on  the  Classical  is  so  kept.  H.  G. 
Wells,  in  Lankester's  Natural  Science  and  the  Classical  System 
in  Education,  p.  202. 

Languages  have  no  value  in  themselves;  they  exist  solely  for 
the  purpose  of  communicating  ideas  and  abreviating  our  thought 
and  action  processes.  If  studied,  they  are  valuable  only  in  so 
far  as  they  are  practically  mastered — not  otherwise.  Abraham 
Flexner.    A  Modern  School,    p.  13. 

No  one  denies  that  the  author  of  the  Iliad  had  marvelous 
skill  in  description,  but  not  a  few  have  regretted  that  a  writer 
of  such  ability  had  no  better  subject  than  the  quarrels  and 
combats  of  lustful  savages,  whose  exploits,  so  vividly  pictured, 
are  those  of  mere  brutes.  John  J.  Stevenson,  Popular  Science 
Monthly  77:555  Dec.  1910. 

Our  colleges,  theological  schools  and  academies  are  yielding 
to  our  ministry  a  small  per  centum  of  thoroughly  trained 
classical  scholars,  mingled  with  some  quite  well  trained  by  their 
own  private  efforts,  and  a  still  larger  number  who,  without 
Greek  or  Latin,  are  good  plain  preachers  and  laborious  pastors. 
Rev.  Dr.  B.  H.  Nadal,  Methodist  Quarterly  49:229,  April  1867. 


LATIN    AND   GREEK  219 

But  the  obvious  way  to  master  our  mother-tongue  is  to 
study  that,  and  not  the  moth^.r-tongue  of  somebody  else — to 
study  it  in  its  own  masterpieces,  not  excluding  indeed  its  adopted 
ones,  whether  from  the  Greek  or  Latin  or  any  other  original,  but 
studying  these  in  its  own  idioms,  forms,  and  words,  not  in  theirs. 
Paul  R.  Shipman,  Popular  Science  Monthly  17:149,  June  1880. 

Shall  we  be  told,  as  usual,  that  the  best  way  to  learn  English 
is  to  study  Latin  and  Greek?  The  answer  is,  that  the  facts  do 
not  corroborate  this  improbable  hypothesis.  American  youth 
in  large  numbers  study  Latin  and  Greek,  but  do  not  thereby 
learn  English.  Charles  W.  Eliot,  Century  Magazine  28:206, 
June  1884. 

As  compared  with  science,  Latin  is  not  only  cheap,  but  an 
easy  subject  to  teach.  In  few  branches  does  a  little  knowledge 
go  so  far  with  a  teacher,  and  in  few  can  it  be  used  in  such  an 
imposing  way  to  drill  and  break  in  boys  on  a  small  capital  of 
knowledge  on  the  teacher's  part.  G,  Stanley  Hall,  School  Re- 
view 9:657  Dec.  1901. 

While  more  secondary  pupils  in  this  country  take  Latin 
than  any  other  topics,  save  algebra  alone,  more  drop  it  soon 
and  forget  it  more  completely  than  is  the  case  with  any  other 
topic.  More  boys  drop  Latin  and  also  drop  out  of  high  school 
from  this  than  is  the  case  with  any  other  subject.  G.  Stanley 
Hall,  New  England  Magazine    n.s.  37:170,  Oct.  1907. 

The  result,  at  all  events,  is  that  the  majority  of  boys  in  our 
schools  never  get  the  idea  that  they  are  in  the  presence  of 
literature  at  all.  They  are  kept  kicking  their  heels  in  the  dark 
and  cold  antechamber  of  parsing  and  grammar,  and  never  get 
a  gUmpse  of  the  bright  garden  within.  A.  C.  Benson,  The 
House  of  Quiet, 

When  the  Government  takes  over  things  the  fur  flies.  But 
who  would  ever  have  expected  to  live  to  see  all  the  American 
Colleges  and  Universities  opening  this  week  with  the  classics 
abandoned,  the  secret  societies  abolished,  athletics  reduced  to 
recreation  and  the  students  made  to  study.  It  all  seems  too 
sensible  to  be  true.    Independent  (editorial)  96:41,  Oct.  12,  1918. 


220  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

The  first  three  centuries  of  the  Christian  era  had  before 
their  eyes  the  Hght  of  the  classics  and  the  wisdom  of  the 
ancients;  but  they  went  steadily  from  bad  to  worse.  The  last 
three  centuries  have  had  modern  literature  and  the  useful  sciences 
and  arts,  and  have  gone  steadily  from  good  to  better.  Dr. 
Jacob  Bigelow,  Modern   Inquiries,  p.   46. 

To  make  the  classics  easy  is  no  part  of  our  duty.  Only  flabby- 
minded  pupils  wish  for  easy  subjects,  and  these  are  not  worthy 
of  our  attention.  For  them  one  might  recommend  a  three  year 
course  in  bookkeeping  and  stenography  as  being  possibly  within 
the  range  of  their  mental  powers.  Editorial,  Classical  Journal, 
13: 147.  Dec.  191 7. 

Among  the  efforts  to  stimulate  interest  in  the  classics  in  high 
schools,  especially  in  the  middle  and  far  west,  may  be  enumerated 
classical  clubs,  Roman  banquets,  Latin  games,  plays  in  the  orig- 
inal Greek  and  Latin  (though  oftener  in  translation)  dramatiza- 
tions of  Vergil,  Caesar,  Horace,  etc.  Classical  Weekly  5:1  Oct. 
7,  191 1. 

A  dead  language  is  the  Dead  Sea  of  thought,  if  it  may  not 
be  more  aptly  likened  to  the  Sea  of  Tranquillity  in  the  moon. 
We  think  in  our  mother-tongue  only,  through  which  only,  there- 
fore, our  self-activity  is  determined,  and  by  which  only,  for 
that  reason,  we  cultivate  our  minds.  Our  mother-tongue  is  the 
sole  medium  of  our  mental  development.  Paul  R.  Shipman, 
Popular  Science  Monthly,  17:148  June  1880. 

One  of  the  main  reasons  for  poor  English  in  high  school, 
is  because  of  the  excessive  time  given  to  other  languages  just 
at  the  psychological  period  of  greatest  linguistic  plasticity  and 
capacity  of  growth.  Dr.  G.  Stanley  Hall  aptly  says,  "Very  grave 
is  the  danger  that  the  idiomatic  use  of  the  mother  tongue  will 
be  destroyed  by  'translation  English.'  Ransom  A.  Mackie, 
Education  During  Adolescence  p.  99- 

It  has  been  said  that  six  months  of  the  language  of 
Schiller  and  Goethe  will  now  open  to  the  student  more  high 
enjoyment  than  six  years'  study  of  the  languages  of  Greece  and 
Rome.    It  is  certain  that  six  months'  study  of  French  will  now 


LATIN   AND   GREEK  221 

open  to  the  student  more  *of  Europe  than  six  years  study  of 
that  which  was  once  the  European  tongue.  Goldwin  Smithy 
Lectures  on  History. 

I  hold  very  strongly  by  two  convictions, — The  first  is,  that 
neither  the  discipline  nor  the  subject  matter  of  classical  educa- 
tion is  of  such  direct  value  to  the  student  of  physical  science  as 
to  justify  the  expenditure  of  valuable  time  upon  either;  and  the 
second  is,  that  for  the  purpose  of  attaining  real  culture,  an 
exclusively  scientific  education  is  at  least  as  effectual  as  an 
exclusively  literary  education.  Thomas  H.  Huxley,  Science  and 
Education,  p.  141. 

To  my  mind  the  only  justification  of  any  kind  of  discipline, 
training,  or  drill  is  attainment  of  the  appropriate  end  of  that 
discipline.  It  is  a  waste  for  society,  and  an  outrage  upon  the 
individual,  to  make  a  boy  spend  the  years  when  he  is  most 
teachable  in  a  discipline  the  end  of  which  he  can  never  reach, 
when  he  might  have  spent  them  in  a  different  discipline,  .which 
would  have  been  rewarded  by  achievement.  Charles  W.  Eliot, 
Educational  Reform   p.  117. 

As  soon  as  public  opinion  began  to  consider  it  the  function 
of  the  State  to  carry  the  child  through  the  additional  years  of 
secondary  schooling,  not  as  a  privilege  for  the  individual,  but 
as  a  State  duty,  then  the  obsoleteness  of  Latin  as  a  school 
subject  became  apparent.  Whatever  its  cultural  value  for  the 
individual,  the  current  educational  criticism  considers  Latin  as 
distinctly  unnecessary  in  a  people's  school,  and  a  relatively 
strong  group  of  critics  would  reject  it  entirely.  U.  S.  Com- 
missioner of  Education,  Annual  Report  for  1912,  p.  9. 

Wealth  or  property  is  the  complement  of  classical  training, 
and  the  young  man  surfeited  with  the  latter  and  minus  the 
former  is  at  a  serious  disadvantage  when  pitted  against  the 
young  man  with  both,  as  witness  the  abject  failures  of  hundreds 
of  young  men  who  leave  our  colleges  and  universities,  their  heads 
crammed  with  Latin  and  Greek,  their  pockets  empty.  If  unfitted 
tempormentally  for  teaching,  they  are  apt  to  be  quite  as  badly 
equipped  for  earning  a  living  as  when  they  entered  college. 
Lapp,  John  A.  and,  Mote,  Carl  H.    Learning  to  Earn.    p.  349-50. 


222  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

There  are  too  many  histories,  too  many  new  sciences  with  ap- 
plications o£  great  importance,  and  too  many  new  literatures  of 
high  merit  which  have  a  variety  of  modern  uses,  to  permit  any- 
one, not  bound  to  the  classics  by  affectionate  associations  and 
educational  tradition,  to  believe  that  Latin  can  maintain  the  place 
it  has  held  for  centuries  in  the  youthful  training  of  educated  men, 
a  place  which  it  acquired  when  it  was  the  common  speech  of 
scholars  and  has  held  for  centuries  without  any  such  good  reason. 
Charles  W.  Eliot.    Latin  and  the  A.  B.  Degree,    p.  15. 

The  study  of  Latin  cannot  tell  us  what  the  English  language 
is — it  can  help  us  to  understand  how  it  has  come  to  be  what  it 
is.  In  order  to  learn  to  speak  English  with  accuracy  and 
precision,  we  have  but  one  rule  to  follow, — to  pay  strict  attention 
to  usage.  The  authority  of  usage,  the  usage  of  cultivated 
persons,  is  in  all  disputed  points  paramount.  ...  In  the  case 
of  words  that  we  have  derived  from  the  Latin,  the  meaning 
of  the  Latin  term  has  often  been  so  modified  that  it  would 
be  the  merest  pedantry  to  pay  attention  to  it.  Henry  Sidgimck, 
Miscellaneous  Essays  and  Addresses,  p.  283. 

Fifty  years  ago  the  standards  of  the  best  colleges,  such  as 
Harvard  and  Yale,  were  no  better  than  the  high  school  of 
today.  Then  the  curriculum  was  filled  with  rubbish  which  the 
instructors  characterized  as  "mental  exercises,"  such  as  theo- 
retical problems  and  language  conjugations.  Now  education  has 
taken  a  trend  toward  the  practical.  Shorthand  replaces  "amo, 
amas,  amat."  We  have  learned  successful  co-ordination  of 
mind  and  body,  and  the  mental  exercises  have  been  discarded. 
President  Arthur  Holmes,  of  Drake  University,  Des  Moines 
Register,  Feb.  13,  1920. 

The  average  classical  graduate,  as  far  as  the  writer's  very 
extensive  experience  tells  him,  uses  no  better  English  than  the 
average  graduate  in  science.  Indeed  it  would  be  easy  to  make 
an  imposing  list  of  authors  to  prove  that  classical  training  is 
unnecessary ;  few  writers  in  England  and  America  have  excelled 
G.  W.  Curtis,  Lawrence  Hutton,  W.  D.  Howells,  T.  B.  Aldrich, 
R.  W.  Gilder,  J.  G.  Holland,  R.  H.  Stoddard,  H.  T.  Tuckerman, 
G.  P.  Lathrop,  and  WilHam  Winter,  yet,  if  the  published  biog- 
raphies be  true,  these  were  not  college  men  and  some  of  them 
had  only  limited  opportunity  in  secondary  schools.  John  J. 
Stevenson,  School  and  Society  10:164,  April  9,  1919. 


LATIN   AND   GREEK  223 

If  a  man  cannot  get  literary  culture  of  the  highest  kind  out 
of  his  Bible,  and  Chaucer,  and  Shakespeare,  and  Milton,  and 
Hobbes,  and  Bishop  Berkeley,  to  mention  only  a  few  of  our 
illustrious  writers — I  say,  if  he  cannot  get  it  out  of  those  writers, 
he  cannot  get  it  out  of  anything;  and  I  would  assuredly  devote 
a  large  portion  of  the  time  of  every  English  child  to  the  careful 
study  of  the  models  of  English  writing  of  such  varied  and 
wonderful  kind  as  we  possess,  and,  what  is  still  more  important 
and  still  more  neglected,  the  habit  of  using  that  language  with 
precision,  with  force,  and  with  art.  Thomas  H.  Huxley,  Science 
and  Education,  p.   185. 

Notwithstanding  our  emphasis  on  classical  subjects,  we  have 
little  to  show  for  our  pains  in  this  particular.  We  have  pro- 
duced a  very  few  men  of  world  eminence  in  art  or  literature. 
Although  our  scientists  have  produced  epochal  inventions  and 
have  made  some  revolutionary  discoveries,  almost  invariably  they 
owe  little  of  their  genius  or  inspiration  to  our  school  system. 
Our  curriculum  does  not  foster  scientific  research  in  the  indus- 
trial world,  and  our  development  in  this  particular  is  due  largely 
to  our  great  natural  resources.  This  development,  in  spite  of  the 
curriculum,  has  furnished  the  invitation  to  science  and  invention. 
The  school  system  has  done  little.  Lapp,  John  A,  and  Mote,  Carl 
H.  Learning  to  Earn.    p.  353. 

The  modern  world  unquestionably  owes  much  to  Greece 
and  Rorne  but  much  less  than  many  would  have  us  believe.  The 
shackles  forged  by  the  Greek  and  Roman  intellect  crippled 
development  after  the  revival  of  learning  and  centuries  passed 
before  men  succeeded  in  casting  them  off.  One  must  concede 
unhesitatingly  the  brilliancy  of  many  ancient  writers,  but  that 
is  not  to  say  that  they  excelled  or  even  equalled  those  of 
modern  times.  Modern  thinkers  excel  those  of  the  classic 
world,  because  the  horizon  is  farther  away;  just  as  civilized  man 
with  many  concepts  excels  the  Greenlander  or  Hottentot  with 
his  few  concepts.  And  it  may  be  said  in  passing  that  Greek  civil- 
ization was  not  self-originated.  It  was  but  the  full  blossoming 
of  Egypt  and  Babylonia,  a  blossoming  which  ignored  the  trunk 
and  roots  whence  it  was  derived.  John  J.  Stevenson,  Popular 
Science  Monthly  77'-SS7i  Dec.  1910. 


224  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

Perfected  by  the  Jesuits  and  imitated  by  the  rest  of  the 
world,  this  classical  training,  which  reigned  until  this  century 
and  has  only  slowly  been  displaced  from  its  seat,  is  a  most 
interesting  devise  of  control  over  the  middle  and  ruling  classes. 
For  a  pyramidal  society  putting  a  severe  strain  on  obedience, 
the  safest  and  best  education  is  one  that  wears  away  the  energies 
of  youth  in  mental  gymnastics,  directs  the  glance  toward  the 
past,  cultivates  the  memory  rather  than  the  reason,  gives  polish 
rather  than  power,  encourages  acquiesence  rather  than  inquiry, 
and  teaches  to  versify  rather  than  to  think.  It  is  natural  that 
teachers  in  meeting  such  requirements  should  construct  a  system 
that  favors  the  humanities  rather  than  the  sciences,  literature 
and  language  rather  than  history,  and  the  forms  of  literature 
rather  than  the  substance.  Prof.  Edward  A.  Ross,  Social 
Control,  p    171-2. 

The  doctrine  that  a  knowledge  of  Latin  is  indispensable  to 
real  acquaintance  with  the  great  literatures  of  the  world  is  diffi- 
cult— ^indeed  impossible — to  maintain  before  American  boys  and 
girls  whose  native  language  is  that  of  Shakespeare  and  Milton, 
of  Franklin  and  Lincoln,  of  Gibbon  and  Macaulay,  of  Scott, 
Burns,  and  Tennyson,  and  of  Emerson  and  Lowell.  English 
literature  is  incomparably  richer,  more  various,  and  ampler  in  re- 
spect to  both  form  and  substance  than  the  literature  of  either 
Greece  or  Rome.  One  of  the  most  interesting  and  influential 
forms  of  English  literature,  namely,  fiction  as  developed  in  the 
historical  romance,  the  novel,  and  the  short  story,  has  no  exist- 
ence in  Greek  and  Roman  literature ;  and  the  types  of  both  poetry 
and  oratory  in  English  are  both  more  varied  and  more  beautiful 
than  those  of  Greece  and  Rome.  Charles  W.  Eliot.  Latin  and 
the  A.  B.  Degree,    p.  14. 

When  Herbert  Spencer  seventy  years  ago  said  that  science 
was  the  subject  best  worth  knowing,  the  schoolmasters  and  uni- 
versity professors  in  England  paid  no  attention  to  his  words. 
The  long  years  of  comparative  peace,  and  of  active  manufactur- 
ing and  trading  which  the  British  Empire  since  that  date  enjoyed 
did  something  to  give  practical  effect  in  British  education  to 
Spencer's  dictum.  The  present  war  has  demonstrated  its  truth  to 
all  thinking  men  in  Europe  and  America.  It  now  clearly  appears 
that  science  is  the  knowledge  best  worth  having,  not  only  for  its 
direct  effects  in  promoting  the  material  welfare  of  mankind,  but 


LATIN   AND   GREEK  225 

also  for  its  power  to  strengthen  the  moral  purposes  of  mankind, 
to  apply  its  method  of  accurate  observation  and  inductive  reason- 
ing to  all  inquiries  and  problems,  and  to  make  possible  a  secure 
civilization  founded  on  justice,  the  sanctity  of  contracts,  and 
good-will.    Charles  W.  Eliot.  Latin  and  the  A.  B.  Degree,   p.  10. 

At  the  time  of  the  revival  of  literature  no  man  could, 
without  great  and  painful  labor,  acquire  an  accurate  and  elegant 
knowledge  of  the  ancient  languages;  and  unfortunately  those 
grammatical  and  philological  studies,  without  which  it  were 
impossible  to  understand  the  great  works  of  the  Athenian  and 
Roman  genius,  have  a  tendency  to  contract  the  views  and 
deaden  the  sensibility  of  those  who  follow  them  with  extreme 
assiduity.  A  powerful  mind  which  has  long  been  employed 
in  such  studies  may  be  compared  to  the  gigantic  spirit  in  the 
Arabian  tale,  who  was  persuaded  to  contract  himself  to  small 
dimensions  in  order  to  enter  within  the  enchanted  vessel,  and 
when  his  prison  had  been  closed  upon  him  fancied  himself 
unable  to  escape  from  the  narrow  boundaries  to  the  .measure  of 
which  he  had  reduced  his  stature.  When  the  means  have  long 
been  the  objects  of  application,  they  are  naturally  substituted  for 
the  end.    Lord  Macaulay,  Essay  on  the  Athenian  Orators. 

If  I  am  to  understand  by  that  term  (literary  education) 
the  education  that  was  current  in  the  great  majority  of  middle 
class  schools,  and  upper  schools  too,  in  this  country  (England) 
when  I  was  a  boy,  and  which  consisted  absolutely  and  almost 
entirely  in  keeping  boys  for  eight  or  ten  years  at  learning  the 
rules  of  Latin  and  Greek  grammar,  construing  certain  Latin  and 
Greek  authors,  and  possibly  making  verses,  which,  had  they 
been  English  verses,  would  have  been  condemned  as  abominable 
doggerel, — if  that  is  what  you  mean  by  liberal  education,  then 
I  say  it  is  scandalously  insufficient  and  almost  worthless.  .  .  . 
It  was  not  literature  at  all  that  was  taught,  but  science  in  a  very 
bad  form.  It  is  quite  obvious  that  grammar  is  science  and  not 
literature.  The  analysis  of  a  text  by  the  help  of  the  rules  of 
grammar  is  just  as  much  a  scientific  operation  as  the  analysis 
of  a  chemical  compound  by  the  help  of  the  rules  of  chemical 
analysis.     Thomas  H.  Huxley,  Science  and  Education,  p.   180-1. 

But  if  the  classics  were  taught  as  they  might  be  taught— 
if    boys    and    girls    were    instructed    in    Greek    and    Latin,    not 


226  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

merely  as  languages,  but  as  illustrations  of  philological  science; 
if  a  vivid  picture  of  life  on  the  shores  of  the  Mediterranean 
two  thousand  years  ago  were  imprinted  on  the  minds  of  scholars ; 
if  ancient  history  were  taught,  not  as  a  weary  series  of  feuds 
and  fights,  but  traced  to  its  causes  in  such  men  placed  under 
such  conditions;  if,  lastly,  the  study  of  the  classical  books  were 
followed  in  such  a  manner  as  to  impress  boys  with  their 
beauties,  and  with  the  grand  simplicity  of  their  statement  of  the 
everlasting  problems  of  human  life,  instead  of  with  their  verbal 
and  grammatical  peculiarities;  I  still  think  it  as  little  proper 
that  they  should  form  the  basis  of  a  liberal  education  for  our 
contemporaries,  as  I  should  think  it  fitting  to  make  that  sort  of 
palaeontology  with  which  I  am  familiar  that  back-bone  of 
modern  education.  Thomas  H.  Huxley,  Science  and  Education, 
/>.  98. 

Once  the  student  cuts  entirely  loose  from  real  objects,  and 
spends  his  days  among  diacritical  marks,  irregular  conjugations 
and  distinctions  without  a  difference,  his  orientation  is  lost. 
The  average  American  boy  quits  the  high  school  in  disgust 
because  he  cannot  interpret  its  work  in  work  in  terms  of  life, — 
he  cannot  see  how  its  work  is  related  to  the  world  of  things  as 
they  are.  The  languages,  ancient  and  modern,  have  a  high  value 
to  those  who  can  master  and  use  them,  for  every  new  language 
opens  to  a  man  a  new  world  and  the  influence  of  a  new  civil- 
ization. Most  high  school  students  get  very  little  from,  any 
of  them,  and  the  one  intellectually  most  important,  the  Greek, 
is  practically  excluded  from  our  secondary  schools  as  being  of 
least  practical  value.  Without  in  the  least  underrating  the 
value  of  Latin  to  "roman-minded"  men,  who  make  a  manly  use 
of  it,  there  is  no  doubt  that  the  average  American  high  school 
boy  gets  less  out  of  Latin  than  out  of  any  other  subject  in  the 
curriculum.  We  may  regret  this,  but  we  must  face  it  as  a  fact. 
David  Starr  Jordan,  Popular  Science  Monthly  y2>  -SO-i*  -^^/y  1908. 

After  the  Reformation  the  English  universities  cease  to 
be  the  organs  of  the  general  intellectual  Ufe,  and  shrank  to  be 
merely  the  educational  preserves  of  the  aristocracy  and  the 
church.  Jews,  Roman  Catholics,  dissenters,  sceptics,  and  all 
forms  of  intellectual  activity  were  carefully  barred  out  from 
these  almost  extinguished  lamps  of  learning.  Their  mathemat- 
ical work  was  poor,  a  series  of  exercises  in  the  mere  patience- 


LATIN   AND   GREEK  227 

games  and  formulae-writing  of  lower  mathematics;  science  they 
despised  and  excluded,  and  their  staple  training  was  the  study, 
without  any  archaeology  or  historical  perspective,  of  the  more 
rhetorical  and  "poetic"  of  the  Latin  and  Greek  classics.  Such 
a  training  prepared  men  not  so  much  to  tackle  and  solve  the 
problems  of  life,  as  to  plaster  them  over  with  more  or  less  apt 
quotations.  It  turned  the  mind  away  from  living  contemporary 
.things;  it  showed  the  world  reflected  in  a  distorting  mirror  of 
bad  historical  analogies;  all  the  fated  convergencies  of  history 
were  refracted  into  false  parallels.  H.  G.  Wells,  The  Outlim 
of  History,  Vol.  II,  p.  428. 

He  (Benjamin  Franklin)  anticipated  the  revolt  against  the 
classics  which  has  come  in  our  own  day  and  which  has  relegated 
Latin  and  Greek  into  the  region  of  the  dead.  It  is  not  inex- 
pedient to  say  that  his  idea  of  studying  only  such  languages  as 
will  be  of  utility  to  those  who  pursue  them  is  the  correct  prin- 
ciple in  this  department  of  education.  In  conformity  with  his 
notion  we  have  the  modern  elective  course,  which  is  the  practical 
result  of  his  challenge  of  the  advantage  and  utility  of  compel- 
ling all  persons  who  pursue  higher  education  to  pursue  the 
same  subject  in  the  same  way  for  different  ends.  .  .  .  When 
he  pleaded  for  the  study  of  modern  languages  and  the  relegation 
of  Latin  and  Greek  to  a  secondary  place,  he  was  confronting  and 
challenging  the  scholastic  world.  The  first  struggle  between 
the  old  system  and  Franklin's  ideas  of  the  new  education  occurred 
in  Philadelphia  in  the  very  institution  which  he  had  been 
instrumental  in  founding,  and  the  story  of  that  struggle  was 
told  by  Franklin  himself  two  years  before  his  death.  Francis 
N.  Thorpe,  Report  of  the  U.S.  Commissioner  of  Education  for 
1902,  Vol.  2,  p.  1 17-18. 

Not  only,  however,  for  intellectual  discipline  is  science  the 
best;  but  also  for  moral  discipline.  The  learning  of  languages 
tends,  if  anything,  further  to  increase  the  already  undue  respect 
for  aiithority.  Such  and  such  are  th.e  meanings  of  these  words, 
says  the  teacher  or  the  dictionary.  So  and  so  is  the  rule  in  this 
case,  says  the  grammar.  By  the  pupil  these  dicta  are  received  as 
unquestionable.  His  constant  attitude  of  mind  is  that  of  sub- 
mission to  dogmatic  teaching.  And  a  necessary  result  is  a  ten- 
dency to  accept  without  inquiry  whatever  is  established.  Quite 
opposite  is  the  attitude  of  mind  generated  by  the  cultivation  of 


iazS  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

science.  By  science,  constant  appeal  is  made  to  individual  reason. 
Its  truths  are  not  accepted  upon  authority  alone;  but  all  are  at 
liberty  to  test  them — nay,  in  many  cases,  the  pupil  is  required  to 
think  out  his  own  conclusions.  Every  step  in  a  scientific  investi- 
gation is  submitted  to  his  judgment.  He  is  not  asked  to  admit 
it  vi^ithout  seeing  it  to  be  true.  And  the  trust  in  his  own  powers 
thus  produced,  is  further  increased  by  the  constancy  with  which 
Nature  justifies  his  conclusions  when  they  are  correctly  drawn. 
From  all  of  which  there  flows  that  independence  which  is  a  most 
valuable  element  in  character.  Herbert  Spencer.  Education ;  In- 
tellecttml,  Moral,  and  Physical,    p.  79-80. 

\ 
*I  think  that  a  course  of  instruction  in  our  own  language  and 
literature,  and  a  course  of  instruction  in  natural  science,  ought 
to  form  recognised  and  substantive  parts  of  our  school  system.' 
'I  think  also  that  more  stress  ought  to  be  laid  on  the  study  of 
French.'  To  make  room  for  these  additions,  the  obvious  remedy 
is  'to  exclude  Greek  from  the  curriculum,  at  least  in  its  earlier 
stage.'  *It  is  supposed  that  there  is  a  saving  of  time  in  begin- 
ning the  study  of  Greek  early.  I  am  inclined  to  think  that 
very  much  the  reverse  is  the  case,  and  that,  if  several  languages 
have  to  be  learnt,  much  time  is  gained  by  untying  the  faggot 
and  breaking  them  separately.  There  are  two  classes  for  whom 
the  present  system  of  education  is  more  or  less  natural, — the 
clergy,  and  persons  with  a  literary  bias  and  the  prospect  of 
sufficient  leisure  to  indulge  it  amply.  Boys  with  such  prospects, 
and  a  previous  training  of  the  kind  I  advocate,  would  in  the 
average  feel,  as  they  approached  the  last  stage  of  their  school 
life,  an  interest  in  Greek  strong  enough  to  make  them  take  to  it 
very  rapidly.'  'The  advantage  that  young  children  have  over 
young  men  in  catching  a  spoken  language,  has  led  some  to  infer 
that  they  have  an  equal  superiority  in  learning  to  read  a  language 
that  they  do  not  hear  spoken;  an  inference  which,  I  think,  is 
contrary  to  experience.'  Henry  Sidgwick,  in  Bain  "Education 
as  a  Science"  p.  387. 

The  Greeks  themselves  were  acquainted  with  no  foreign 
tongue.  Did  they  know  nothing  of  their  own?  They  declined 
to  seek  culture  in  "self-alienation,"  as  they  might  have  done, 
by  studying  to  think  in  the  idioms  and  to  give  their  thoughts 
the  forms  and  words  of  the  Pelasgians,  Egyptians,  Phoenicians, 
or  Persians,  although  some  of  them,  it  is  true,  when   already 


LATIN*  AND   GREEK  229 

cultivated,  picked  up  what  they  thought  worth  taking  among 
the  intellectual  possessions  of  these  people,  as  was  sensible; 
but  their  own  language  was  the  exclusive  instrument  of  their 
culture,  as  the  study  of  it  was  their  exclusive  means  of  knowing 
it.  The  "special-culture  study"  of  the  Greeks  was  their  mother- 
tongue;  and  the  method  that  sufficed  for  them-^which  trained 
Homer,  Socrates,  Plato,  Thucydides,  Demosthenes — will  suffice 
for  us.  It  has  sufficed  for  us.  Shakespeare,  the  greatest  master 
of  expression  that  the  race  has  produced,  knew  no  tongue  but 
his  own;  and  from  the  solar  splendor  of  this  supreme  instance 
the  argument,  as  no  English  scholar  need  be  told,  shades  down- 
ward through  one  radiant  name  after  another  in  the  firmament 
of  our  literature.  And  the  method  is  vindicated  by  not  less 
significant  products  in  other  tongues,  as  witness,  notably,  the 
Icelandic  "Njala,"  a  biographical  work  at  once  of  surpassing 
excellence  in  style  and  of  purely  native  culture.  Paul  R.  Ship- 
man,  Popular  Science  Monthly   17:151,   June   1880. 

And  here  we  see  most  distinctly  the  vice  of  our  educational 
system.  It  neglects  the  plant  for  the  sake  of  the  flower.  In 
anxiety  for  elegance,  it  forgets  substance.  While  it  gives  no 
knowledge  conducive  to  self-preservation — while  of  knowledge 
that  facilitates  gaining  a  livelihood  it  gives  but  the  rudiments,  and 
leaves  the  greater  part  to  be  picked  up  any  how  in  after  life — 
while  for  the  discharge  of  parental  functions  it  makes  not  the 
slightest  provision — and  while  for  the  duties  of  citizenship  it  pre- 
pares by  imparting  a  mass  of  facts,  most  of  which  are  irrelevant, 
and  the  rest  without  a  key;  it  is  diligent  in  teaching  everything 
that  adds  to  refinement,  polish,  eclat.  .  .  .  Supposing  it  is  true 
that  classical  education  conduces  to  elegance  and  correctness  of 
style ;  it  cannot  be  said  that  elegance  and  correctness  of  style  are 
comparable  in  importance  to  a  familiarity  with  the  principles  that 
should  guide  the  rearing  of  children.  Grant  that  taste  may  be 
greatly  improved  by  reading  all  the  poetry  written  in  extinct  lan- 
guages; yet  it  is  not  to  be  inferred  that  such  improvement  of 
taste  is  equivilent  in  Value  to  an  acquaintance  with  the  laws  of 
health.  Accomplishments,  the  fine  arts,  belles-lettres,  and  all 
those  things  which,  as  we  say,  constitute  the  efflorescence  of  civi- 
lization, should  be  wholly  subordinate  to  that  knowledge  and 
discipline  in  which  civilization  rests.  As  they  occupy  the  liesure 
part  of  life,  so  should  they  occupy  the  liesure  part  of  education. 
Herbert  Spencer,  Education:  Intellectual,  Moral,  and  Physical. 
p.  61-3. 


230  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

The  world  mainly  owes  its  present  advanced  and  civilized 
state  to  the  influence  of  certain  physical  discoveries  and  inven- 
tions of  comparatively  recent  date,  among  which  are  conspicuous 
the  printing  press,  the  mariner's  compass,  the  steam  engine,  and 
the  substitution  of  machinery  for  manual  labor.  The  materials 
and  agents  for  these  and  other  like  improvements  have  existed 
ever  since  the  creation  of  the  world,  but  the  minds  of  qualified 
and  competent  thinkers,  being  absorbed  in  less  profitable  studies, 
had  not  been  turned  effectively  upon  them  or  upon  their  uses. 
There  was  electricity  in  the  clouds,  there  were  loadstones  in  the 
mountains,  cataracts  in  rivers,  and  steam  in  household  utensils, 
but  the  world  rolled  on;  empires  and  dynasties  and  ages  of 
barbarism  passed  away,  and  left  the  minds  of  men  engaged  in 
superstitious  rites,  in  scholastic  studies,  and  in  fruitless  or 
pernicious  controversies.  We  owe  the  great  debt  of  modern 
civilization  to  the  enterprising,  acute,  patient,  and  far  seeing 
innovators  who,  during  the  last  few  centuries,  have  broken  away 
from  the  prescribed  and  beaten  track  of  their  predecessors,  and 
have  given  their  energies  to  developing,  directing,  and  utilizing 
the  illimitable  forces  of  the  material  world.  If  these  very  men 
had  given  up  their  time  to  the  objectless  controversies  of  the 
schools,  or  to  the  more  easy  and  agreeable  studies  of  Latin  and 
Greek,  ignoring  the  great  and  vital  problems  of  physical  science, 
the  dark  ages  would  have  still  prevailed  in  Europe,  and  America 
might  have  remained  an  undiscovered  wilderness.  Dr.  Jacob 
Bigelow,  Remarks  on  Classical  and  Utilitarian  Studies   p.  31-2. 

Neither  Latin  or  Greek  would  be  contained  in  the  curriculum 
of  the  Modern  school — not,  of  course,  because  their  literatures 
are  less  wonderful  than  they  are  reputed  to  be,  but  because  their 
present  position  in  the  curriculum  rests  upon  tradition  and  as- 
suniption.  A  positive  case  can  be  made  out  for  neither.  The 
literary  argument  fails,  because  stumbling  and  blundering 
through  a  few  patches  of  Latin  classics  do  not  establish  a  con- 
tact with  Latin  literature.  Nor  does  present-day  teaching  result 
in  a  practical  mastery  of  Latin  useful  for  other  purposes.  Ma- 
ture students  who  studied  Latin  through  the  high  school,  and 
perhaps  to  some  extent  in  college,  find  it  difficult  or  impossible 
to  understand  a  Latin  document  encountered  in,  say,  a  course  in 
history.  If  practical  mastery  is  desired,  more  Latin  can  be 
learned  in  enormously  less  time  by  postponing  the  study  until 
the  student  needs  the  language  or  wants  it.     At  that  stage  he 


LATIN   AND   GREEK  231 

can  learn  more  Latin  in  a  few  months  than  he  would  have  suc- 
ceeded in  acquiring  through  four  or  five  years  of  reluctant  effort 
in  youth.  Finally,  the  disciplinary  argument  fails,  because  mental 
discipline  is  not  a  real  purpose;  moreover,  it  would  in  any  event 
constitute  an  argument  against  rather  than  for  the  study  of  Latin. 
I  have  quoted  figures  to  show  how  egregiously  we  fail  to  teach 
Latin.  These  figures  mean  that  instead  of  getting  orderly  train- 
ing by  solving  difficulties  in  Latin  translation  or  composition,  pu- 
pils guess,  fumble,  receive  surreptitious  assistance  or  accept  on 
faith  the  injunctions  of  teacher  and  grammar.  The  only  disci- 
pline that  most  students  could  get  from  their  classical  studies  is 
a  discipline  in  doing  things  as  they  should  not  be  done.  I  should 
perhaps  deal  with  yet  another  argument — viz.  that  Latin  aids  in 
securing  a  vigorous  or  graceful  use  of  the  mother  tongue.  Like 
the  arguments  previously  considered,  this  one  is  unsubstantiated 
opinion;  no  evidence  has  ever  been  presented  in  proof.  Abraham 
Flexner.    A  Modern  School,    p.  18-19. 

Contrary  to  the  popular  belief,  the  ability  to  speak  several 
languages  is  not  a  mark  of  mental  power.  It  merely  indicates 
a  retentive  memory  of  a  certain  kind  and  a  knack  for  imitating 
sounds.  Sir  Richard  Burton  relates  in  one  of  his  books  that 
once  when  near  Jeddah  he  was  accosted  by  a  man  in  Turkish. 
Getting  no  response,  he  tried  Persian ;  then  the  same  silence  made 
him  try  Arabic.  When  his  listener  still  kept  silent  he  grumbled 
out  his  astonishment  in  Hindustani.  That  also  failing,  he  tried 
in  succession  Pushtu,  Armenian,  English,  French  and  Italian. 
When  Burton  could  no  longer  restrain  his  risibilities,  he 
admitted  his  nationality  and  chatted  for  some  time  with  the 
stranger  in  English,  which  he  spoke  very  well.  Professor  Starr 
says  in  his  "The  Truth  about  the  Congo"  that  members  of 
the  Bantu  tribes  are  often  met  with  who  speak  several  languages 
readily.  A  recent  denominational  periodical  gives  the  names  of 
several  men  who  preach  in  four  different  languages  and  a 
larger  number  in  three.  One  clergyman  is  named  who  uses 
Spanish,  French,  Mandarin,  Chinese,  Japanese,  Italian  and 
English.  Of  another  it  is  said  that  he  preaches  in  Burmese, 
German,  English,  Spanish,  Latin,  Greek,  Hebrew,  Danish,  French 
and  Quechua.  When  one  visits  an  auction-room  on  the  continent 
of  Europe  at  a  point  where  several  languages  are  spoken  and 
prospective  buyers  arrive  from  all  parts  of  the  world,  he  may 
hear  the  auctioneer  drop  one  language  and  take  up  another  until 


232  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

all  present  have  heard  in  their  own  tongue  what  the  goods  are 
and  the  bids.  One  also  meets  on  the  trains  traveling  salesmen 
who  speak  several  languages  with  almost  equal  fluency.  Cardinal 
Mezzofanti,  who  died  in  1849,  spoke  fifty-eight  languages  and 
knew  fairly  well  about  fifty  more.  He  was  a  man  of  very  ordi- 
nary ability  except  that  he  had  a  singularly  tenacious  memory  of 
an  unusual  kind,  so  that  when  he  once  heard  a  speech-sound 
he  never  forgot  it.  About  twenty  years  ago  there  was  an 
employee  in  one  of  the  London  offices  who  was  able  to  receive 
and  to  send  telegrams  in  twelve  different  languages.  But  he 
soon  gave  himself  up  to  drink  and  became  so  unreliable  that  the 
company  felt  obliged  to  discharge  him.  Charles  W.  Super, 
Popular  Science  Monthly  77:S'^-7i  Dec.  1910. 

Allow  for  wastage,  for  bad  health,  and  for  bad  teaching — and 
in  this  country  (England)  for  the  next  thirty  years  it  is  plain 
common-sense  to  allow  for  bad  teaching — you  get  for  the  most 
fortunate  class  in  the  commimity,  between  5,000  and  8,000  hours 
of  teaching  altogether.  Now  what  have  you  got  to  do  in  that 
precious  five  to  eight  thousand  hours?  You  have  to  make  an 
educated  man,  a  man  equal  to  modern  demands.  Let  us  consider 
what  these  demands  are.  Surely  our  elite  must  have  two  or  three 
modern  languages,  not  a  large  order  so  far  as  French  and  Ger- 
man go,  but  now  there  is  this  matter  of  Russia.  This  community 
of  ours  must  get  on  terms  of  understanding  with  the  great 
Russian  community.  It  is  a  startlingly  obvious  political  necessity. 
Unless  a  number  of  our  better-class  boys  talk  and  understand 
Russian,  our  relations  with  the  Russian  people  must  be  conducted 
very  largely  by  political  exiles  and  friendly  Germans.  Very  well, 
if  you  do  not  like  that  you  must  have  Russian  in  the  curriculum. 
Then  there  is  mathematics.  In  this  mechanical  age  it  is  ridicu- 
lous that  our  ruling  class  should  not  have  a  good  mathematical 
training.  It  is  as  necessary  for  the  gentleman  nowadays  to 
understand  a  machine  as  it  was  in  the  old  days  for  a  knight  to 
understand  his  horse.  Next  comes  the  history  of  mankind,  the 
history  of  the  universe — ^you  want  your  boy  of  the  better  class 
at  least  to  know  his  place  in  regard  to  the  world,  to  mankind, 
to  the  past,  in  order  to  know  his  relation  to  the  task  in  hand. 
Philosophy — ^you  want  social  philosophy  and  a  great  deal  of  po- 
litical philosophy,  though  for  the  great  mass  of  our  ruling  class 
it  does  not  enter  into  their  education  at  all  at  present.  There, 
let  me  point  out,  you  have  an  explanation  of  the  extraordinary 


LATIN   AND   GREEK  233 

difficulty  of  which  we  are  constantly  hearing  complaints,  the  fail- 
ure not  of  the  workman  to  understand  the  employer,  but  of  the 
employer  to  understand  the  workman.  Because  there  is  no  social 
political  philosophy  diffused  through  this  country  all  our  social 
and  economic  questions  are  dealt  with  in  a  petty  spirit  which 
seems  to  bring  us  always  before  we  have  got  far  with  them,  to 
a  bitter  personal  class  dispute.  Lastly,  this  British  Science  Guild 
will  not  be  pleased  unless  I  include  some  experimental  science 
for  the  sake  of  method  also  in  this  outline  of  a  curriculum. 

That  is  surely  a  good  filling-up  of  the  5,000  to  8,000  hours  of 
the  boy's  education.  This  is  as  much  or  more  than  we  can  hope 
to  do.  But  let  us  look  at  the  time-table  of  a  reasonably  clever 
boy  of  fourteen  or  fifteen  at  a  public  school.  We  find  Latin, 
Latin,  Latin,  Greek,  Greek,  Greek.  Because  of  the  traditional 
ineptitude  of  the  teacher — and  it  is  a  traditional  subject — not  one 
boy  in  ten  who  begins  Latin  will  get  to  a  mastery  of  that  lan- 
guage, and  in  the  case  of  Greek  not  one  boy  in  a  thousand.  There, 
I  think,  we  come  to  the  real  sickness  in  British  education.  This 
ineffective  classical  teaching  sticks  like  a  cancer  in  the  time-table, 
blocking  it  up,  compressing  and  distorting  all  other  teaching. 
H,  G.  Wells,  in  Lankester,  Natural  Science  and  the  Classical 
System  in  Education,    p.  200-2. 

It  cannot  be  maintained  that  the  classical  system  tends  to  the 
accomplishment  of  any  of  the  aims  which  have  been  above  enum- 
erated as  those  which  we  may  expect  to  attain  by  an  education 
in  which  literary  cultivation  by  means  of  English  and  the  other 
modern  languages  accompanies  a  thorough  and  sincere  teaching 
and  training  in  the  methods  and  results  and  history  of  natural 
science.  It  does  not  in  any  way  cultivate  literary  taste  or  implant 
either  a  knowledge  of  or  liking  for  literature.  On  the  contrary, 
it  creates  in  a  large  majority  of  its  victims  a  disgust  for  not  only 
Latin  and  Greek  literature,  but  for  all  serious  literary  study.  As 
Lord  Rayleigh,  the  Chancellor  of  the  University  of  Cambridge, 
told  the  meeting  at  Burlington  House  on  May  3,  1916:  "It  is 
nothing  less  than  an  absurdity  to  talk  about  impressing  the  aver- 
age school-boy  with  the  language  and  literature  of  the  ancients." 
He  quoted  his  brother-in-law,  the  distinguished  classical  scholar, 
Henry  Sidgwick,  as  saying  that  "the  great  impediment  to  a 
literary  education  is  classics :  you  pretend  to  take  a  literary  edu- 
cation by  Greek  and  you  end  by  getting  none  at  all."     When, 


234  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

further,  we  come  to  that  aim  of  education  which  we  have  spoken 
of  here  as  "thinking  truly,"  we  find  that  the  classical  system  does 
not  make  the  smallest  pretence  of  even  attempting  that  result. 
There  is  no  possibility  of  its  introducing  a  youth  to  a  perception 
of  the  bare  facts  of  the  world  in  which  he  lives,  let  alone  give 
them  an  understanding  of  natural  laws  or  a  development  of  his 
own  powers  of  observation,  judgment,  and  capacity  for  discov- 
ering what  is  true  and  what  is  false.  He  is  put  through  exer- 
cises in  the  memory  and  imitation  of  the  phrases  of  more  or 
less  ignorant  and  deluded  Roman  and  Greek  writers.  He  is 
trained  as  the  slave  of  authority  and  tradition.  His  outlook  is 
backward  rather  than  forward,  and  he  is — so  far  as  the  classical 
system  educates  him  at  all — led  to  shrink  from  facing  the  great 
facts  which  actually  concern  his  very  life  and  his  relations  to  its 
incidents,  and  to  cover  his  ignorance  and  incapacity  by  quotation 
or  invocation  of  extinct  "masters"  of  whose  writings  his  under- 
standing is  as  small  as  is  their  importance  at  the  present  day. 

When  the  worthlessness  and  consequently  injurious  character 
of  the  classical  system  in  education  are  brought  to  public  atten- 
tion, it  has  become  usual  of  late  years  on  the  part  of  those  who 
seek  to  defend  that  system  to  make  assertions  attributing  to  it 
virtues  and  advantages  which  they  are  not  able  to  prove,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  to  belong  to  it.  The  chief  of  these  is  the  assertion 
that  the  classical  system  gives  "literary  education."  LOvers  of 
literature  and  adepts  in  that  art  have  been  induced  to  rally  to 
the  support  of  the  classical  system  by  this  plea.  But  the  evidence 
before  us  clearly  shows  that  the  classical  system  is  destructive  of 
literary  education  and  its  worst  enemy.  A  second  plea  is  that 
the  grammatical  and  other  such  exercises  of  the  classical  system 
form  an  unrivalled  "mental  gymnastic,"  and  that  on  this  ground 
we  should  approve  of  its  monopoly  of  school  education.  The 
reply  to  this  is  that  there  are  other  equally  good  "mental  gym- 
nastics" available,  and  that  in  any  case  it  is  injurious  to  employ 
more  than  a  very  limited  portion  of  the  time  and  resources  of 
school  education  in  gymnastics,  whether  physical  or  mental.  A 
third  line  which  has  of  late  years  been  taken  in  the  attempt  to 
defend  the  classical  system  is  to  call  the  study  of  the  classics  and 
of  archaeology,  history,  geography  and  modern  languages 
"humanistic."  It  is  difficult  to  ascertain  what  its  inventors  really 
meant  by  this  clumsy  word,  but  if  it  is  used  in  order  to  suggest  a 
connection  with  the  "humanism"  of  the  Renascence  it  is  grossly 
misleading;  if  it  is  intended  to  imply  that  the  studies  so  described 


LATIN   AND   GREEK  235 

are  "humanizing"  and  that  others  contrasted  with  them  are 
brutalizing,  it  is  offensive  as  well  as  untrue;  lastly,  if  it  is  in- 
tended to  assert  that  the  studies  classified  as  "humanistic"  are 
especially  "human"  or  "humane,"  as  relating  to  man's  thought 
and  endeavor,  we  must  protest  that  we  cannot  consent  to  exclude 
from  the  application  of  those  terms  any  branch  of  human  thought 
and  endeavor.  As  a  great  thinker  and  writer,  W.  K.  Clifford,  has 
said,  "There  are  no  'scientific'  subjects.  The  subject  of  science  is 
the  human  universe ;  that  is  to  say,  everything  that  is  or  has  been 
or  may  be  related  to  man."  The  claim  that  the  classical  system 
furnishes  an  education  in  "humanistic"  studies  cannot  be  ad- 
mitted (even  were  we  to  accept  that  term),  for  the  reason  that 
the  classical  system  fails  altogether  to  give  an  education.  ^tV  Ray 
Lankester,  Natural  Science  and  the  Classical  System  in  Educa- 
tion,   p.  264-6. 

It  is  twenty-seven  years  since  the  class  of  which  I  was  a  mem- 
ber graduated  from  this  college.  .  .  .  How  did  Harvard  Col- 
lege prepare  me,  and  my  ninety-two  classmates  of  the  year  1856, 
for  our  work  in  a  life  in  which  we  have  had  these  homely  pre- 
cepts brought  close  to  us?  The  college  fitted  us  for  this  active, 
bustling,  hard-hitting,  many-tongued  world,  caring  nothing  for 
authority  and  little  for  the  past,  but  full  of  its  living  thoughts 
and  living  issues,  in  dealing,  with  which  there  was  no  man  who 
did  not  stand  in  pressing  and  constant  need  of  every  possible 
preparation  as  respects  knowledge  and  exactitude  and  thorough- 
ness— the  poor  old  college  prepared  us  to  play  our  parts  in  this 
world  by  compelling  us,  directly  and  indirectly,  to  devote  the 
best  part  of  our  school  lives  to  acquiring  a  confessedly  superficial 
knowledge  of  two  dead  languages.  .  .  .  Thirty  years  ago,  as 
for  three  centuries  before,  Greek  and  Latin  were  the  funda- 
mentals. The  grammatical  study  of  two  dead  languages  was  the 
basis  of  all  liberal  education.    .  .  . 

In  pursuing  Greek  and  Latin  we  had  ignored  our  mother 
tongue.  We  were  no  more  competent  to  pass  a  really  searching 
examination  in  English  literature  and  English  composition  than 
in  the  languages  and  literature  of  Greece  and  Rome.  ...  I  was 
fortunately  fond  of  reading  and  so  learned  English  myself,  and 
with  some  thoroughness.    .  .  . 

I  do  not  hesitate  to  say  that  I  have  been  incapacitated  from 
properly  developing  my  specialty  (railway  management)  by  the 
sins  of  omission  and  commission  incident  to  my  college  training. 


236  SELECTED   ARTICLES 

The  mischief  is  done,  and  so  far  as  I  am  concerned,  is  irreparable. 
I  am  only  one  more  sacrifice  to  the  fetich.  But  I  do  not  propose 
to  be  a  silent  sacrifice.  I  am  here  today  to  put  the  responsibility 
for  my  failure,  so  far  as  I  have  failed,  where  I  think  it  belongs, 
— at  the  door  of  my  preparatory  and  college  education.     .  .  . 

I  am  told  that  I  ignore  the  severe  intellectual  training  I  got 
in  learning  the  Greek  grammar,  and  in  subsequently  applying  its 
rules ;  that  my  memory  then  received  an  education  which,  turned 
since  to  other  matters,  has  proved  invaluable  to  me;  that  accum- 
ulated experience  shows  that  this  training  can  be  gotten  equally 
well  in  no  other  way;  that,  beyond  all  this,  even  my  slight  con- 
tact with  the  Greek  masterpieces  has  left  me  with  a  subtle,  but 
unmistakable  residuum,  impalpable  perhaps,  but  still  there,  and 
very  precious;  that,  in  a  word,  I  am  what  is  called  an  educated 
man,  which,  but  for  my  early  contact  with  Greek,  I  would  not  be. 

All  this,  with  not  undue  bluntness  be  it  said,  is  unadulterated 
nonsense.  The  fact  that  it  has  been  and  will  yet  be  a  thousand 
times  repeated,  cannot  make  it  anything  else.  In  the  first  place, 
I  very  confidently  submit,  there  is  no  more  mental  training  in 
learning  in  Greek  grammar  by  heart  than  in  learning  by  heart 
any  other  equally  difficult  and,  to  a  boy,  unintelligible  book.  As 
a  mere  work  of  memorizing,  Kant's  "Critique  of  Pure  Reason" 
would  be  at  least  as  good.  In  the  next  place,  unintelligent 
memorizing  is  at  best  a  most  questionable  educational  method. 
For  one,  I  utterly  disbelieve  in  it.  It  never  did  me  anything  but 
harm ;  and  learning  by  heart  the  Greek  grammar  did  me  harm — 
a  great  deal  of  harm.  While  I  was  doing  it,  the  observing  and 
reflective  powers  lay  dormant;  indeed,  they  were  systematically 
suppressed.  Their  exercise  was  resented  as  a  sort  of  imperti- 
nence. We  boys  took  up  and  repeated  long  rules,  and  yet  longer 
lists  of  exceptions  to  them,  and  it  was  drilled  into  us  that  we 
were  not  there  to  reason,  but  to  rattle  off  something  written  on 
the  blackboard  of  our  minds.  The  faculties  we  had  in  common 
with  the  raven  were  thus  cultivated  at  the  expense  of  our  appre- 
hension and  reason  which,  Shakespeare  tells  us,  makes  man  like 
the  angels  and  God.    .  .  . 

So  much  for  what  my  alma  mater  gave  me.  In  these  days  of 
repeating  rifles,  she  sent  me  and  my  classmates  out  into  the  strife 
equipped  with  shields  and  swords  and  javelins.  We  were  to 
grapple  with  living  questions  through  the  medium  of  dead  lan- 
guages. It  seems  to  me  I  have  heard,  somewhere  else,  of  a 
child's  cry  for  bread  being  answered  with  a  stone.     But  on  this 


LATIN   AND  GREEK  237 

point  I  do  not  ike  publicly  to  tell  the  whole  of  my  own  experi- 
ence. It  has  been  too  bitter,  too  humiliating.  Representing 
American  educated  men  in  the  world's  industrial  gatherings,  I 
have  occupied  a  position  of  confessed  inferiority.  I  have  not 
been  the  equal  of  my  peers.  It  was  the  world's  Congress  of  to- 
day, and  Latin  and  Greek  were  not  current  money  there.   .   .   . 

I  most  shrewdly  suspect  that  there  is*  in  what  are  called  the 
educated  classes,  both  in  this  country  and  in  Europe,  a  very  con- 
siderable amount  of  affection  and  credulity  in  regard  to  the  Greek 
and  Latin  masterpieces.  That  is  jealousy  prized  as  part  of  the 
body  of  the  classics,  which  if  published  today  in  German  or 
French  or  English,  would  not  excite  a  passing  notice.  There  are 
immortal  poets,  whose  immortality,  my  mature  judgment  tells  me, 
is  wholly  due  to  the  fact  that  they  lived  two  thousand  years  ago. 
Even  a  dead  language  cannot  veil  extreme  tenlity  of  thought 
and  fancy;  and,  as  we  have  sen,  John  Adams  and  Thomas  Jef- 
ferson were  in  their  day  at  a  loss  to  account  for  the  reputation 
even  of  Plato.   .   .   . 

The  familiarity  with  the  classic  tongues  which  would  enable  a 
man  to  appreciate  the  classic  literatures  in  any  real  sense  of  the 
etrm  is  a  thing  which  cannot  be  generally  imparted.  Even  if  the 
beauties  which  are  claimed  to  be  there  are  there,  they  must  per- 
force remain  conceald  from  all,  save  a  very  few,  outside  of  the 
class  of  professional  scholars. 

But  are  those  transcendent  beauties  really  there?  I  greatly 
doubt.  I  shall  never  be  able  to  judge  for  myself,  for  a  mere 
lexican-and-grammar  acquaintance  with  a  language  I  hold  to  be 
no  acquaintance  at  all.  But  we  can  judge  a  little  of  what  we  do 
not  know  by  what  we  do  know,  and  I  find  it  harder  and  harder 
to  believe  that  in  practical  richness  the  Greek  literature  equals  the 
German,  or  the  Latin,  the  French.  Leaving  practical  richnss 
aside,  are  there  in  the  classic  masterpieces  any  bits  of  Hterary 
workmanship  which  takes  precedence  of  what  may  be  picked  out 
of  Shakespeare  and  Milton  and  Bunyon  and  Clarendon  and  Ad- 
dison and  Swift  and  Goldsmith  and  Gray  and  Burke  and  Gibbon 
and  Shelley  and  Burns  and  Macaulay  nd  Carlyle  and  Hawthorne 
and  Thackeray  and  Tennyson?  If  there  are  any  such  transcendent 
bits,  I  can  only  say  that  our  finest  scholars  ,have  failed  most 
lamentably  in  their  attempts  at  rendering  them  into  English. 

For  myself,  I  cannot  but  think  that  the  species  of  sanctity 
which  has  now,  ever  since  the  revival  of  learning,  hedged  the 
classics,  is  destined  soon  to  disappear.  Charles  Francis  Adams, 
A  College  Fetich, 


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